Staff
Shauta Marsh
Co-founder & Director of Programs & Exhibitions
Shauta is co-leader of Big Car. A social practice artist, curator, writer, author and researcher, Shauta’s work centers around restorative spaces, utopia/dystopia and urban/rural relationships. She writes and produces the Social Alchemy radio programs on 99.1 WQRT LP-Indianapolis, creates public art projects and events via Big Car’s placemaking program, Spark and leads the APLR program. Curating on the themes of community memory and mythology, she specializes in rapid response exhibitions. She has curated over 50 exhibits with artists including Carlos Rolón, Saya Woolfalk, LaToya Ruby Frazier, etc.
Jim Walker
Co-founder & Executive Director
Jim Walker is co-leader of Big Car. Jim is a social practice artist, placemaker, community builder, designer, teacher, and writer who believes everyone deserves open access to the joys of art, creativity, and great public places. Jim — who worked previously as a journalist (writer, photographer, editor, and designer) — is a student of cities and enjoys walking, biking, travel, and baseball. He lives with his family in the Garfield Park neighborhood.
Andy Fry
Co-founder & Creative Director
Andy is an artist, designer and musician. He specializes in collaborative design, frequently synthesizing diverse opinions from numerous stakeholders into singular, coherent outcomes. In addition to his work as creative director at Big Car, he has maintained his own design practice for over 15 years. He has a BFA in painting and a BA in philosophy from Indiana University, Bloomington.
Eduardo S. Luna
Staff Artist
Born in Mexico, raised in the Midwest, Eduardo is passionate about bringing the two cultures together. He is a founding member of NOPAL Cultural Center, a Latino-American arts organization. He also manages events and appearances of his friend El Camaron Electronico, a luchador whose mission is to bring culture to the community.
Julie Xiao
Public Art & Programs Manager
Julie Xiao is an Indianapolis based artist who creates narrative works that speak about contemporary subject matters depicted in a fantastical manner. She has been experimenting with scale and different aesthetic techniques to depict mythological worlds that focus on exploring multicultural identity and mythologies. Much of her aesthetic techniques are inspired by traditional Chinese paintings, Japanese prints, as well as contemporary media such as films and comics. Xiao is a storyteller as much as she is an artist, she blends her digital media skills with her traditional art experiences to create well balanced compositions that convey various narratives. She strives to create engaging works that tell a story and encourages the viewers to connect and explore more about the artwork.
Oreo Jones
Staff Artist
Oreo Jones (Sean Smith) is that pair of Air Jordans too scuffed up to wear in public, but you do it anyway because they still feel right. Hailing from Warsaw, Indiana, Jones has made Indianapolis his creative mecca. A multi-talented artist who delves into sound, music, and visual experimentation, Jones shares and expand the minds of people in surrounding neighborhoods, while helping the city grow.
Landon Caldwell
Space & Sound Manager
Landon Caldwell is a composer and multi-disciplinary artist in Indianapolis whose work examines environment, family, & class through the language of intuition and other hidden layers of reality. Through sound, words, color and other materials, his work creates environments that redirect attention to the present and open new realities through the minutiae of the everyday.Since 2016 he has co-operated Medium Sound, producing a number of the label’s releases. From 2017 to 2020 he was a co-owner/operator of A-Space, a community-focused audio workspace. He has toured in the United States, Canada, and Europe and is regularly engaged with artists and musicians across the Midwest and beyond.His collaborative work expands into multi-disciplinary fields, working with film, visual arts, sculpture, poetry, dance, and more.
Stephan Fonville
Assistant Builder/Staff Artist
Born in South Bend, raised on the west side of Indianapolis, Stephan is a passionate barista and field artist activist for Big Car Collaborative. Although Stephan isn’t an artist, he possesses a creative mindset, allowing him to curate captivating displays and engaging experiences that enhance the overall atmosphere of the Tube Factory and Spark Placemaking projects. Always excited to contribute his skills, passion, and positive energy- his ultimate goal is to create memorable moments for the community.
Aaron Cook
Lead Builder
Aaron Cook is a multifaceted writer, musician, builder, and caretaker deeply committed to cultivating spaces that foster artistic expression. Guided by shared truths and a dedication to intentional community, he approaches each opportunity with a fresh perspective, seamlessly blending creativity and mindfulness. After a decade managing facilities and grounds at Ox-Bow School of Art and touring as a drummer, Aaron has returned to his hometown in southern Indianapolis. Here, he continues his meditation practice, nurtures his passions for nature, music, and woodworking, and excels as a creative problem solver within community-based settings.
Hannah A. Hadley
Grants & Marketing Coordinator
Hannah A. Hadley is a writing and public relations professional who graduated from the University of Indianapolis with a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations and a minor in Art History in 2024. At UIndy, Hannah worked on the editorial staff of the university’s student-run newspaper, The Reflector. In addition to serving as Big Car’s Grants & Marketing Coordinator, Hannah is a full-time corgi mom. She enjoys learning about art and — sometimes — trying it out for herself. Her hopes are to help strengthen Big Car’s impact on its surrounding community, one word at a time.
Lauren Pontenberg
Programs Associate and Staff Artist
Lauren Pontenberg is a multimedia artist located in Indianapolis, Indiana. After graduating from Ball State University with a BFA concentrated in drawing and a minor in art history, Lauren was eager to begin her career at Big Car Collaborative with hopes of using her experience to share the natural satisfaction of creating art with others. Her illustrative paintings, drawings, books, and zines are detailed, intimate, and colorful retellings of notable experiences and feelings felt in her past. Pontenberg’s emotional art practice is therapeutic for her, and she hopes her artworks bring others comfort through relatability and nostalgia. Her art has been displayed in Woman Made Gallery (Chicago, IL), Storage Space Gallery (Indianapolis), and The Art Museum in Greater Lafayette. For more of her work and updates on future exhibitions follow @look.at.what.lauren.drew on Instagram.
ARTIST RESIDENTS
Learn about the program here.
Bashiri Asad
APLR Artist
Inspired by artists like Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding, “the Everyday Soul Singer” Bashiri Asad has come to define his sound as “Indy-Soul.” Asad honed his style through classical vocal training as well as singing in shoo-wop style groups. These experiences, coupled with his own strength and passion, have united to manifest his own version of true indie soul.
Kaila Austin
APLR Artist
Kaila Austin is a visual artist and public historian from Indianapolis. Since 2019, she has run her own historic consulting organization at the intersection of Creative Placemaking and Heritage Preservation. In her paintings, she works primarily in figures, working to place everyday people into enlightened positions. She was one of the muralists for the Murals for Racial Justice Program through the Arts Council of Indianapolis and is working to create several more murals around the midwest based on creating spatial justice for Black people within the urban cityscape. Her work has been featured in Pattern Magazine, Black Art in America, Forbes Magazine and the NY Times.
Carrington Clinton
APLR Artist
Carrington “Clint Breeze” Clinton is a drummer, music producer, bandleader, and composer. In 2014, Clinton released his first project under the name Clint Breeze, titled Evolve. At that time, Clinton started to make noise around the city as a producer and a drummer, both releasing projects and playing for several artists in the city (Rob Dixon, Jared Thompson and Premium Blend, Tucker Brothers Group, Cliff Ratcliff, etc.). To date, Clint has released four projects and has played with several artists in and around Indianapolis.
Dr. Jarrod Nicholas Dortch
APLR Artist
Dr. Jarrod Nicholas Dortch is a community artist. The work Dortch creates is what one could do themselves, and this is the art of it. Guiding others and motivating them to create is what makes Dortch’s art so personal and so public. His medium is what the world provides, and from it, he provides prompts for discourse. Dortch is a small part of a movement of Black artists and curators who are hosting exhibits and creating work that shines a light on Black culture with an emphasis on placemaking and community. His most recent project “Snuggy Bear Presents…” was created as another pathway to further disrupt the status quo of contemporary and fine art. With roots in art, community, and education, Dortch is leveraging these disciplines to help promote personal and communal growth.
Dailyn Eades
APLR Artist
Creating art has always been a form of self expression for Dai. She uses a menagerie of different textures and mediums, but her primary medium is acrylic. Dai doesn’t minimize the tools that she uses in her process. Creating has been healing for her inner child and allowing herself to just be while not overthinking. Dai values creating through trusting the process by allowing every color choice, brush stroke and texture to speak for itself. Dai has reflected a lot on her art and her central message. Every time she paints it’s a reflection of her self love journey, and is about her choosing herself over and over again. She utilizes art as a coping skill to navigate the world around her. She’s very intentional about the projects, collaborations and partnerships she takes on. Dai has partnered with different local nonprofit organizations to promote community, equitability, upliftment and support through art.
Jane Sun Kim
APLR Artist
Behind Jane Sun Kim’s film photography, sculpture, and layered silk screen printing lie the raw glimmers in all of the in-between, awkward, and private moments. Her work knows no boundaries in medium or material, as Kim reaches her points of creation through the use of found and traditionally discarded materials in her sculptures to reply to the growing sustainability issues. The beauty of her craft is that it serves as a balancing agent. Creating out of a necessity to organize her obsessions and release them, her work is rooted in repetitive thought patterns resulting from OCD, anxiety, and depression. Kim uses this channel to confront perceptions and stigmas on mental health, exploring nostalgia and emotional intimacy.
Justin Cooper
APLR Artist
Justin Cooper is primarily a self-taught, Indianapolis-based visual artist. Over 20 years of independently developing his artistic voice as well as relationships formed with fellow artists he connected with through artist communities such as the Murphy Art Center, Wheeler arts Community and Big Car Collaborative’s artist in residency program have been central to his evolution as an artist. Cooper employs a variety of mediums to his pieces such as graphite illustration, oil painting, digital design, pyrography, and gilding. His main inspirations stem from observations of nature, art history and architecture. Cooper is fascinated by the geometric formations, patterns, and the underlying structural arrangements found within nature.
Rob Funkhouser
APLR Artist
As a composer, performer, and instrument maker, Funkhouser channels the wonders of the world through his inquisitive and revelatory works. Originally from Richmond, Indiana, Funkhouser is obsessed with the concept of timelessness within his musical practices. His work is a unique extension of classical and electronic music. Exploring the world of recursion, manipulation, and translation, he draws inspiration from nature, design, and systems of thought. He also builds instruments as a creative act itself. Formally trained on percussion with both a Bachelors and Masters degree in Composition, he makes music not only for himself, but also approaches it on a macro level by thinking about the spaces, audiences, and community he’s situated in and attracted to.
Christen Baker
APLR Artist
Christen Baker is a multidisciplinary artist that explores the intersection of our internal and external worlds. With a BFA in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA in Glass from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, she merges technology and visual art across mediums like glass, neon, sculpture, 3D rendering and photography. Baker’s work delves into how attention and desire influence material use, space, and information hierarchies. She has completed residencies at Belger Arts in Kansas City MO, The International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemet, Hungary, The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, and received the Leroy Nieman Fellowship in Glass at Ox-Bow School of Art. Recently moved from Philadelphia, PA, she continues to explore the geographies of public spaces and objects, real and imagined, in Indianapolis, IN..
Sharon Rickson
APLR Artist
A jack of all trades, Sharon Rickson has been involved in Indianapolis’ art community as a teacher, musician, and community organizer. Early exposure to Chicago’s music scene inspired her to start playing music. Eventually she started writing her own songs and gathering with other musically inclined individuals. She emerged into Indy’s art scene in her early twenties. After graduating from Herron School of Art with a degree in Art Education, she began her work as a teaching artist with the Indianapolis Art Center. From teaching underserved youth in the summer and after school programs to playing in various Indianapolis bands, her immersion in music inspired her to gather local musicians to help launch a music teaching non-profit, Girls Rock!
Uzuri Asad
APLR Artist
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Uzuri Asad now lives and works in the Garfield Park neighborhood of Indianapolis as part of Big Car Collaborative’s Artist in Public Life Residency program. She’s a singer, dancer, choreographer, and jewelry-maker. Formally trained in West African dance and contemporary movement, her art is guided by lived experiences and her cultural upbringing. Her style is a unique blend of fluid, free flowing, yet intentional movements. For Asad, dance is a sacred means of individual expression that lives and breathes through her.
Sylvia Thomas
APLR Artist
A poet, activist and artist, Sylvia began performing her spoken word in 2016. She performed at a few open mics and showcases in Indianapolis. From then on, she began to feature at different spots all over the state and the Midwest. In 2018, her words took her to Copenhagen, Denmark as a poet for Winter Pride. After her trip to Europe, she wrote a collection of poems for her debut chapbook, DIVINE. In 2020, she began displaying her creative process of her works on Patreon. In August of 2021, she was a headliner for Copenhagen 2021: World Pride and EuroGames. After her World Pride performance, she performed for a collaboration between the Global Queer Youth Network and the United Nation Envoy on Youth. Sylvia released her self-published book, Twirl: A Collection of Poetry by a Queer and Transgender Hoosier, in November of 2021 and VIGIL in September of 2023. She continues to travel and create more work.
1Tru.ly
APLR Artist
1Tru.ly is half of the Indianapolis based, genre-bending hip-hop, soul, and spoken word duo We Are Tribesoul. With Mariah Ivey, centering love, they’ve used their art as a catalyst to reimagine Black futurity and inspire hope within community. While they have yet to release a full studio-length album, they’ve rapidly developed a fan base through riveting live performances, high-energy stage presence, and a uniquely curated experience for each audience. We Are TribeSouL has had the pleasure of performing a host of shows in the Midwest region—most notably, GANGGANG’s inaugural fine arts festival Butter, as well as opening for Grammy Award winning artists Arrested Development and Anthony Hamilton, and contributing to the Emmy Award Winning Music-in-Transit series. After an extensive hiatus filled with rediscovery, growth, and self mastery, they are looking forward to continuing their journey through music.
Alejandra Carrillo
APLR Artist
Originally from Kansas, printmaker Alejandra Carrillo and her family relocated to Indianapolis when she was in fourth grade. As someone with Mexican heritage, her work has a theme of activism in relation to decolonization and the experiences of Latine undocumented communities. As the newest member of the APLR program, she is excited to connect to her neighbors and grow in her own practice from their knowledge. In 2023, Alejandra —alongside another Latine community member — painted a mural on the side of the Mexican Consulate in Indianapolis celebrating the connection between the communities of Indiana and Mexico. Last year, her work was featured in a Newfields exhibit highlighting Latine artists in a classically institutionalized space. She frequently exhibits her prints focused on social activism at galleries across the Midwest. And Alejandra teaches at the Indianapolis Arts Center where she enjoys seeing people connect with art.
Stephanie Williams
APLR Artist
Williams is a ceramist whose work focuses on the connections between nature, the human body, and technology. Her work pays particular attention to environmental and social issues, presenting the viewer with multiple visual representations of how humans and their habits have negatively affected our planet and our global ecosystem. “My hopes are that viewing my work will inspire the viewer to change their habits and be mindful of the fact that every little thing they do, or don’t do, matters.”
India Hines
APLR Artist
India Hines, a self-taught artist from Denver, CO, and raised in Indianapolis, IN, uses ink, watercolor, and oil paints to explore spirituality and the subconscious. Their intuitive process results in figurative faces and organic shapes that reflect a journey of growth, resilience, and love. India’s art is deeply meditative, rich with emotional depth, and narrates stories of overcoming adversity. Active in community projects and exhibitions, India believes in art’s power to unite and continues to push creative boundaries while exploring personal growth and self-discovery.”
Bryn Jackson
APLR Artist
Bryn Jackson is a Filipino-American artist and curator based in Indianapolis whose work centers nature as a means of unpacking and connecting disparate narratives, personal experiences, and material culture. An interdisciplinarian whose practice focuses on ecological inequity and institutional critique through sculptural, digital, photographic and time-based media production, his work insists upon a more ethical and equitable stewardship of art, artists, our communities, our ecosystems, and our histories. Bryn received a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has exhibited his work in galleries, clubs, universities, and artist-run spaces in New York, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Los Angeles. He has curated independently and at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, collaborating with dozens of artists and partner organizations to address issues of gender- and race-based violence and oppression and environmental injustice.
Jazlyn Gomez
APLR Artist
Jazlyn Gomez is a mixed media artist based in Indianapolis, Indiana. As a Chicanx artist, their biggest muse is Sultepec, Estado de Mexico; their parents’ hometown and birthplace. Not only this, but their art incorporates their struggle of growing up in a predominantly white community and constantly having to code-switch throughout their life. Experiencing the clash of cultures from living in the United States and visiting their family in Mexico cemented a foundation for their artwork. Jazlyn hopes to establish themself as a well-rounded artist that can communicate effectively through their art. They hope their art becomes something that the Latino community can look forward to in the future.”