Square Share! May 15th! from Big Car on Vimeo.
Tuesday is the day when we share all the stories people have shared with us: their wishes, their dreams, the things that mean the most to them. We hope you can join us between 5-9 p.m. to celebrate the culmination of a three month project that resulted in 507 stories, from 353 kids and 154 adults! A drawing of raffle prizes for story sharers takes place at 7 p.m. Prizes include a video camera, camera, audio recorder and notebooks for people to continue creating their own stories.
How did this happen? Starting in March, Big Car collective members and our partners found these stories at 10 neighborhood sites, including four schools and Service Center. The stories focus on an object or wish that is important to the person sharing. Most often, strangers interviewed each other, getting to know a little about their new acquaintances. Photographers and videographers - many of them kids - also took portraits of each person who shared. Local artists and drawing students taking drawing classes at Ivy Tech then illustrated the stories with sketches that Big Car staff and volunteers scanned and saved before mailing them back to the people who shared. These cards serve as both original art pieces for participants to keep and as invitations to the exhibition. Staff and volunteers then collaboratively designed the scanned drawings, photos and story excerpts to create the exhibition. The show remains up through June 30 and is free to attend.
In partnership with Latino Youth Collective, the performance group Know No Stranger and the youth writing organization Second Story, we got this done by engaging 44 volunteer artists, including three photographers, three writers, three designers, and 38 illustrators who together completed 453 volunteer hours. That was 102 hours gathering stories; 215 hours drawing; 76 hours scanning, typing and filing; and 60 hours designing.
This project is financially supported, in part, by the Eagledale Lafayette Square Area Weed & Seed. It is ending in its current incarnation, as are other government-funded Weed & Seed programs in the city. The May 15 event is also a celebration of earlier Weed & Seed projects through the years and the people involved in making these happen with the goals of creating safer neighborhoods and stronger communities. We thank them so much for supporting our vision to bring the neighborhood together and help us all get to know each other better!
Big Car: Creativity, Culture and Community from Big Car on Vimeo.
Big Car is excited to help invigorate our public spaces: parks, city squares, the Canal, The Cultural Trail, White River State Park. This is a big part of our focus this summer and going forward. With the help of people like you in April, we raised more than $4,000 to land a long-term home for our Department of Yes engagement-based public programming effort. Read Erika Smith's column in The Indianapolis Star about the project here. Now we're working to raise $20,000 over the course of this year for the program.
Drop by Service Center!
Service Center for Culture and Community is open Wednesdays and Thursdays 11 a.m.-7 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for co-working, perusing the library, using the computer lab with free wi-fi, and participating in creative projects like Square Share.
Get the full scoop on what's going on this week here.
Read an excellent story from the Central Indiana Community Foundation about Service Center and Big Car here and another by Indiana Humanities here.
Want to get involved at Service Center?
Artists/writers/experts/tinkerers/thinkers/everyone!
Service Center invites you to volunteer your time to propose and/or lead a public, FREE, brief, informal, one-time or reoccurring event/workshop/class/discussion/session/game and so on. We are also taking suggestions for events people would like to attend that we could explore hosting. Just send an an email by clicking the contact button above to let us know what you'd like to do or what you'd hope to see happen at Service Center. Thanks!
Want to know more about Big Car?
In addition to our Service Center work and our Made for Each Other projects, in 2012 Big Car is busy with several citywide efforts including organizing TEDxIndianapolis (Oct. 26, details soon), producing the city's 48 Hour Film Project, (Aug. 3-5, screening Aug. 11), and participating in projects like Reconnecting to Our Waterways and the White River Festival in September. We're also launching, this summer, a new initiative called the Department of Yes to invigorate public spaces. Play games and get creative with us!
Check out pictures of what we've been up to here.
