Big Car

12 Mar 2025

Big Car Collaborative’s Year in Review Highlights for 2024

March 12, 2025 | 0 Comments

While we’re always looking ahead and are very excited about what’s next, we know it’s important to stop and consider how we arrived here and what we’ve accomplished together. So we’re sharing Big Car Collaborative’s look back at highlights from 2024. This all often happened in partnership with others and was only possible for our nonprofit organization thanks to our generous funders and supporters. Of note, we’re highlighting a variety of things that shed light, also, on how we learn and share what we’ve learned.

Our approach is a cyclical one of innovating through trying testing ideas, learning from what works well and not as well, and adapting as we go forward. This is our approach to our ever-evolving and growing campus around Tube Factory in the Garfield Park neighborhood — including expansion into a 40,000-square-foot contemporary art museum space that opens in late 2025.

Likewise, this is how we continue to work with artists and the community in public art projects like our DigIndy partnership with Citizens Energy Group. And you can hear our growth over the air with our always-improving experimental art and community FM radio station, 99.1 WQRT.

Here are our 2024 highlights:

First Friday patrons view Julian Jamaal Jones’ “Take Me Back” exhibit at Tube Factory in the Main Gallery.

January

Opened the exhibition, Take Me Back, by Indianapolis-based artist Julian Jamaal Jones in the upstairs gallery spaces at Tube Factory.
As a new recipient of funding for live music from the Levitt Foundation, three Big Car staff members attended Levitt’s convening in Los Angeles where we connected with other organizations from across the country and picked up ideas and approaches for our concert series.
While in Los Angeles, we visited museums linked to our plans for expansion on the Tube Factory campus — including MOCA Geffen, an early example of a former industrial building adapted into a contemporary art museum in 1983 with design by architect Frank Gehry. We were also able to experience Luna Luna, an artist-made amusement park brought back to life after being packed up for decades.
Co-founder Jim Walker, and Lourenzo Giple — Big Car board president starting in 2025 — began co-teaching a class on art, placemaking, social justice, and society at Indiana University in Bloomington. Walker also began teaching his course, as he has for multiple years and is again in 2025, on public art in the MFA program at Herron School of Art in Indianapolis.

Youth patrons decorate fans at the 2024 Lunar New Year event at Tube Factory.

February

Opened the exhibition, Hogar Dulce Hogar, by Indianapolis-based artist and musician Giselle Trujillo in the Efroymson Gallery in Tube Factory with a performance also on the First Friday in March of 2024.
Co-founders Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh took a learning trip to Marfa, Texas — experiencing a few full days of touring spaces and learning more about the art and architectural work of Donald Judd who adapted much of a small town into a place for him and other artists to live, work, and show contemporary art.
Hosted a successful Lunar New Year celebration with food, dance, fireworks, and socializing at Tube Factory artspace.

Visitors view Giselle Trujillo’s “Dulce Hogar Dulce” in the Efroymson Gallery at Tube Factory.

March

Closed on New Market Tax Credits and got Phase 2 of our campus expansion — the 40,000-square-foot contemporary art museum — under contract with Jungclaus Campbell.

Jessica Dunn talks with a guest while standing in the middle of her exhibit “Particular Fragments” in Tube Factory’s Efroymson Gallery.

April

Opened Rachel Leah Cohn’s exhibition, Mem, in the upstairs gallery spaces at Tube Factory where it stayed up until July. Cohn, who has shown around the world, is based in Indianapolis.
Opened the multimedia Particular Fragments exhibition by Indianapolis-based artist Jessica Dunn in Efroymson Gallery.
Hosted a solar eclipse event in Tube Factory at our outdoor area featuring a live performance by Dunn and M. Moskaliuk and a soundtrack show by Walker broadcasted at the time of the eclipse on WQRT FM.
Four staff members attended the Expo Chicago art fair, staying up to date on trends in the contemporary art realm and attending panel discussions and visiting art spaces in Chicago.
Five staff members and artists from our collective and long-term residency program took a weekend trip to visit artist-run spaces and art museums in Cincinnati as part of our partnership with other artist-run organizations in the midwest.

An overhead drone shot of the Tube Factory campus in May 2024.

May

Hosted the Region Ninety group exhibition in Guichelaar Gallery, a house gallery on our campus curated and managed by artists in our long-term residency program. The Region 90 show featured 23 artists from Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky addressing censorship.
Marsh and Walker visited art museums on the east coast as part of their ongoing research — most notably the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Hosted the Learning Tree’s national Common Ground Gathering opening event with keynote speaker Mindy Fullilove.
Marsh and Walker presented about Big Car’s work and attended the Congress for New Urbanism conference on the theme of Restorative Urbanism in Cincinnati.
Welcomed our latest artists in the long-term residency program as we finished renovations on our 18th affordable home for artists on the Tube Factory block with our lovely Terri Sisson Park in its center.

Jim Walker, Shauta Marsh, and other SPARK partners speak at Placemaking Week by Project for Public Spaces in Baltimore.

June

Opened SPARK on the Circle for 2024 — our fourth year of activating Monument Circle with human-scale cultural programs in partnership with the City of Indianapolis, Downtown Indy, and others (2015, 2022, 2023, 2024).
Marsh, Walker and SPARK partners presented at Placemaking Week by Project for Public Spaces in Baltimore and attended this conference and visited art spaces and public places across the city.
Hosted the A Portrait of Motherhood photography exhibit by Kelley Jordan Schuyler, an artist based in our Garfield Park neighborhood — in Tube Factory’s Efroymson Gallery.
Celebrated the start of work on the contemporary art museum expansion on the Tube Factory block with a groundbreaking event with Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and many of our funders, supporters, and partners.
Brought New-York based poet Ariana Reines to Tube Factory artspace for a reading event and to create a commissioned poem for the Chicken Chapel of Love.

Japanese experimental vocalist Hatis Noit performs at Tube Factory.

A shot from the Main Gallery portion of Elisa Harkin’s “Ekvnv (Land), the Sacred Mother from Which We Came.”

July

Opened the NEA-supported Elisa Harkins exhibition, Ekvnv (Land), the Sacred Mother from Which We Came, in all three galleries in Tube Factory.
Hosted a sold-out concert by Japanese experimental vocalist Hatis Noit at Tube Factory as part of her American tour that included MassMoCA and the Andy Warhol Museum.

Walker presented — along with the Indiana Communities Institute at Ball State — about arts-focused placemaking and community development to Hancock County, Indiana leaders.

Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh (second and third from last) pose with Big Car’s ARTI Award for Neighborhood Impact at the Indy Art Council’s annual Start with Art event.

August

Received an ARTI Award for Neighborhood Impact from the Arts Council of Indianapolis at Start with Art.
Walker led a conversation about art and baseball with visual artists and former Major League Baseball player Micah Johnson at GANGGANG’s Butter Art Fair in Indianapolis.
Opened the Sound Field visual and audio exhibition in Guichelaar Gallery by two of our long-term resident artists, Rob Funkhouser and Justin Cooper, in collaboration with Landon Caldwell, a Big Car staff member.

Members of “Forgotten Tribe” perform at a concert in the 2024 Levitt VIBE Indianapolis Music Series in Garfield Park.

September

Kicked off the seven-week Levitt VIBE Indianapolis concert series located, in 2024, in Garfield Park.
Walker and Marsh continued their research by visiting multiple historic and contemporary utopian communities, and important cultural and architectural locations.

Teens in the 2024 TeenWorks Summer Program sit on the benches at the Bean Creek Outlook.

October

Celebrated the opening of the Bean Creek Outlook — a new gathering space to appreciate art and nature along Bean Creek on the Tube Factory campus primarily built over the summer with TeenWorks youth.
Received awards for SPARK on the Circle from Indy Chamber and Accelerate Indiana Municipalities (AIM).
Walker led a workshop for communities on placemaking and socially engaged art for the Indiana University Center for Rural Engagement.

A shot of a busy day at SPARK during the Taylor Swift weekend at SPARK on the Circle.

November

Hosted more than 10,000 Taylor Swift fans and other visitors over a busy weekend full of music and artmaking at SPARK Monument Circle.
Opened Reflejos Grabados, a solo exhibition in Efroymson Gallery by Alejandra Carrillo, an artist in our long-term residency program.
Opened New! and Impervious to Natural Elements, a solo exhibition in Guichelaar Gallery by Christen Baker, an artist in our long-term residency program.
Our co-founders visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home and studio in Wisconsin.
Opened Julie Xiao’s A Journey exhibition in Tube Factory and celebrated her new Fire Mother mural on the Chicken Chapel of Love.
Hosted a multi-day gathering of midwestern organizations who are, like Big Car, part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program.
Awarded six $10,000 grants to Indianapolis-based artists through our Power Plant Grants program funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation.
Walker presented on the topic The Future of Design Process as part of a panel in The American Institute of Architects Regional and Urban Design Conference in Indianapolis.
Six staff members and artists from our collective and residency program presented in and attended the MDW Summit of midwestern artist-run spaces in Kansas City.
Walker led a workshop on arts-focused public space activation as part of the Project for Public Spaces Making it Happen series.
Marsh participated in a curatorial workshop on art and censorship in New York City. And Marsh and Walker visited galleries and adaptive reuse spaces — including Judd’s preserved former home and studio, 101 Spring Street.
Began a curatorial exchange partnership with The FRONT, an artist-run space in New Orleans. Marsh selected Indianapolis based artists Bryn Jackson and Nasreen Khan to exhibit. We’ll host a show in return at Tube Factory in 2025. This enables Indianapolis artists access to exhibit work out of state, engaging a new audience.

Guests fill the Main Gallery during a sound healing event in coordination with Julie Xiao’s exhibit “A Journey.”

December

Walker continued research travel to cultural, arts, utopian, and organic architecture spaces in Phoenix including Taliesin West, the Japanese Friendship Garden, and the Heard Museum.
Installed a new abstract mural called Waiting for the Light to Tell Them What to Be by Walker in the windows of the Listen Hear space on Shelby Street.
Kicked off our Big Table matching campaign with IHCDA and Patronicty for the culinary arts program and spaces in the expanded contemporary art building currently under renovation and set to open in 2025. We met our goal in early February of 2025.
Began self-reflection and restorative events in the Tube Factory main gallery linked with Julie Xiao’s exhibition. Happening weekly through mid February of 2025, these included sound healing, yoga, and restorative story time.

24 Sep 2024

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Tube Factory expansion to address Indy’s need for contemporary art museum

September 24, 2024 | Comments Closed | big car, community development, contemporary art, placemaking

Since 2016, Tube Factory artspace — a project of the 20-year-old nonprofit Big Car Collaborative — has served as a contemporary art mainstay that shares top-quality commissioned exhibitions while reimagining the role of cultural institutions in the community.

Tube Factory is quadrupling its footprint by adding 40,000 square feet for art in a 125-year-old former dairy barn and industrial space adjacent to its current location just south of Downtown Indianapolis.

While work is now underway thanks to a bridge loan, we at Big Car still have about $1.5 million to raise. People can donate in a variety of ways, with info and online options found here.

In this building expected to open in 2025, visitors will experience five exhibition spaces for contemporary art — including an expansive main gallery for large-scale, immersive installations, 18 studios for artists, a large commercial kitchen offering culinary training and serving the on-site restaurant and bar, five business incubator storefronts, two audio recording studios (including the new home for Big Car’s 99.1 WQRT FM), and a large performing arts and event space.

The sprawling historic building — already stabilized thanks to $1.8 million from a Lilly Endowment Inc. grant Big Car received in 2019 — will anchor the Tube Factory campus that includes a new sculpture park and 18 affordable homes for artists who give back to support the community through their work.

Filling a contemporary art need

With this $8 million expansion, Big Car is making a focused investment in multi-disciplinary contemporary art by going all in to expand its 20-building Tube Factory campus as its city’s contemporary art museum.

“We see now as the perfect time for us to further build a place that reimagines the role of the museum in the community while welcoming visitors from across the street and around the world,” said Big Car co-founder and director of programs and exhibitions, Shauta Marsh. “Pittsburgh has Mattress Factory. Bentonville has The Momentary. Detroit has MOCAD. Cleveland has SPACES. Indianapolis has Tube Factory.”

An important aspect that sets Tube Factory apart from other art spaces in Indianapolis is its approach to curated and commissioned art exhibitions. Tube Factory pays artists directly for producing their shows in the space (and has since its opening in 2016). This approach does not rely on gallery sales for compensating artists.

While the expansion of the Tube Factory builds a place for everyone Marsh said the additional building is also specifically planned to further support artists — with a strong emphasis on supporting artists of color. “This is a continuation of our long-term investment in artists and in strengthening our city overall,” Marsh continued. “Art is a great way to bring people together and help us see new perspectives. Artists are able to address topics and issues that aren’t always easy to talk about.”

In many cities around the world — including Indianapolis — artists have worked hard to boost their neighborhoods and invest time and energy into studio buildings, only to be priced out once they’ve made the spaces more desirable. “That won’t happen here,” said Jim Walker, Big Car’s co-founder and executive director. “Ours is a long-term place, one of very few in our city where the arts nonprofit owns the real estate — ensuring the long-term sustainability of our artist-led campus as a civic commons for culture, creativity, and community.”

Making a long-term investment in art and artists

Many foundations and individuals have generously supported this contemporary art expansion. Major donors to this capital project so far include Lilly Endowment Inc., Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Efroymson Family Fund, Herbert Simon Family Foundation, The Indianapolis Foundation, Seybert Family Foundation, and Tube Processing Corporation. The project is also supported with financing through the City of Indianapolis’ New Markets Tax Credits program, managed by Indy CDE.

“We believe that these funds-and the amazing things that Big Car Collaborative will do with them-will help us in our aim to establish Indianapolis as a true center for the arts. A center that will not only bring more artists and art appreciators to our city, but also greatly benefit our existing communities,” Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said at the building’s groundbreaking event on June 18.

“This project is hugely important for our city for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that the Tube Factory fills a significant gap in the art landscape of Indianapolis. It provides a space dedicated to contemporary art and its creators, who make up a crucial part of any thriving art scene,” Hogsett continued.

“These artists also play a huge role in our communities. Through their art, they provide our residents with new avenues of understanding new ways of looking at the world around them. The art serves to bring us together and to help us understand one another. And this is paramount in today’s day and age, when we are simultaneously the most connected and the most divided we have ever been.”

Big Car utilized a bridge loan through IMPACT Central Indiana — a multi-member LLC created by Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF), The Indianapolis Foundation, and Hamilton County Community Foundation — to get the next phase of construction rolling as Big Car continues to fundraise another $2 million. This fundraising is for repaying the bridge loan and starting a maintenance endowment.

“We’re so very grateful and appreciative of the incredible, transformative support we’ve received so far,” said Big Car board president Jenifer Brown. “Our board and campaign committee have stepped up to help guide us through what’s really our first fundraising effort for a major capital project.”

Indianapolis-based Jungclaus-Campbell is the general contractor on the renovations. Blackline Studio architects worked with Big Car staff on the design.

Another key aspect of Big Car’s Tube Factory expansion is that supporters can see their investment as benefiting Indianapolis artists for many years to come. The Tube Factory buildings aren’t part of another development that could someday change focus.

“It’s very important that our nonprofit organization owns our buildings and that our galleries are dedicated to exhibitions,” said Marsh. “If we were filling a space for a real-estate developer or located in a privately-owned building, our long-term future would always be out of our control. And we might be asked to compromise on how we use the space or censor the content of our exhibits. That won’t happen here. This is a lasting investment in art and artists. It’s not about real estate or making money.”

Space for expanded exhibitions, programs

Backed by an array of local and national funders, Tube Factory has been commissioning work by artists from Indianapolis and around the world since it opened in 2016. Tube Factory’s commissioned artists receive Marsh’s support as a curator in addition to being paid to make new work that might not be possible to sell. Big Car will invest $10,000 to $50,000 in its exhibits that stay up for multiple months.

With a changing landscape for contemporary art that includes the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (iMOCA) dissolving as an organization in 2020, Big Car and its supporters see a need to focus even more on bringing innovative and engaging work by today’s artists to a place visitors can enjoy.

As the former executive director and curator at iMOCA, Marsh brought contemporary art museum experience from the very beginning at Tube Factory. As they formed plans and launched programs on the Tube Factory campus, Marsh and Walker visited and researched contemporary art spaces all over the world — many of them adaptive reuse projects.

The result is that a large portion of the bigger Tube Factory building will be dedicated to sharing even more of the kind of contemporary art exhibitions rarely seen in Indianapolis. Like Tube Factory now — which is open for visitors five days a week, including Saturdays and Sundays — this will all happen in a dedicated contemporary art building with regular museum hours for visits.

For example, in 2024, Tube Factory will share a major exhibition by Tulsa-based indigenous-American artist Elisa Harkins. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation, Ruth Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, this commissioned show will fill multiple galleries in Tube Factory for six months. Harkins, who recently received a $100,000 Creative Capital grant for a connected project, has been working with Marsh on this for six years.

The expansion will allow Tube Factory to offer more exhibitions like the one by Harkins — and keep them on display for longer. Like many contemporary art museums around the world, Tube Factory commissions exhibits but does not typically collect work.

Additionally, the new space will offer a flexible, black box space for performing arts groups to put on shows, as well as for special events and mini conferences. The culinary center will provide an opportunity for a unique nonprofit restaurant and bar that will function as an ongoing community-focused art project.
“Artists aren’t always painters or musicians. Chefs, cooks, bakers, bartenders, and baristas are some of the most important and most loved artists in our lives every day,” Walker said. “Food brings people together like nothing else. It’s vital for sharing and celebrating our cultures and our creativity in delicious ways we enjoy.”

History of Big Car and the Tube Factory campus

Added to in phases, the building under renovation started small in the late 1800s as a culinary space of sorts — a barn for Weber Dairy. It wound up part of a complex of properties owned by Tube Processing Corporation, a company still located in the neighborhood. Tube Processing donated the building to Big Car in 2021.

Big Car’s current community art center, Tube Factory, was originally a dairy bottling plant and, later, another of the buildings in the complex — also donated by Tube Processing to Big Car in 2015. Tube Factory is now a place where community organizations meet and people gather for cultural programs.

“As a family and company with deep ties to the Garfield Park community and as longtime supporters of the arts, we’re thrilled to support Big Car’s important work at the Tube Factory campus,” said Katie Jacobson, President of Tube Processing and co-chair, with Ken Honeywell, of Big Car’s capital campaign committee. “And we’re glad the Nelson building — with so much history — is being preserved and adapted to be a one-of-a-kind place for art, artists, small business owners, and visitors from the neighborhood and beyond.”

In addition to hosting museum exhibits from artists based in Indianapolis and around the world, the current Tube Factory serves as home base with wood, print, and ceramics shop space for Big Car staff and resident artists in its housing program. Tube Factory is open five days a week with a coffee shop and events like artisan markets that encourage visits by people who might ordinarily participate in the arts.

In addition to fixing up formerly vacant houses on the block since 2015, Big Car also joined three large backyards adjacent to Tube Factory and the big building being renovated now to create Terri Sisson Park: A Shrine for Motherhood. This restorative place — also made possible with the support of Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Efroymson Family Fund, and others — includes living artworks related to nature including Sam Van Aken’s Tree of 40 Fruit and Juan William Chavez’s Indianapolis Bee Sanctuary.

The park, designed by Daniel Liggett of Rundell Ernstberger Associates, also includes an amphitheater for performances and The Chicken Chapel of Love, a sacred art project led by Marsh to honor the divine feminine and belief systems that center around nature.

Led by Walker and Marsh, who have lived in the Garfield Park neighborhood for 14 years, Big Car has made a deep investment in the near southside since starting work there in 2011. This work includes co-leading a major quality-of-life planning process and offering Tube Factory for gatherings like Garfield Park and Bean Creek neighborhood meetings. Tube Factory is located within both official boundaries.

Throughout its 20-year history, Big Car was often a mobile organization — temporarily filling vacant spaces. The organization learned the importance of owning spaces from taking on projects in buildings Big Car didn’t control — a former tire shop outside then half-empty Lafayette Square Mall and a popular art gallery and music venue in Fountain Square — only to later have to leave those spaces.

A group of artists and neighbors started Big Car in Fountain Square on the near southside of Indianapolis in 2004 as an all-volunteer organization. Still artist run, Big Car now employs 12 people and has operated with an annual budget of about $1 million for the last several years.

By the numbers

$13 million in planned investment for expansion
$7.3 million invested so far on the Tube Factory block
Year Big Car started working on the near southside: 2004
Year Big Car began its focus on Garfield Park: 2011
Year Big Car started working on the Tube Factory block: 2015
Acres owned: 6
Number of affordable artist homes on the Tube Factory block: 18
Artists and family members in the affordable homes: 25

04 Sep 2024

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Thanks for supporting Big Car’s Water World / Bean Creek Outlook Project!

September 4, 2024 | 0 Comments

Big Car has transformed an overlooked, overgrown spot along Bean Creek on our Tube Factory campus into a beautiful public place for peaceful reflection, socializing, and learning about nature. Visit this peaceful area by the creek next time you come to Tube Factory!

Thanks to donor and funder support we were able to:

1. Remove a section of asphalt currently located very near Bean Creek, where we created a space for an outdoor classroom and gathering area. This intimate space — inspired by the Happiness Garden located in the 19th Century utopian community of Zoar, Ohio — features permeable landscaped paths surrounding native pollinator plants.

2. Add a path near the creek and stones as steps down that will allow visitors better access to this year-round waterway enjoyed by fish, water birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals like muskrats and mink.

3. Continue to work with experts to remove invasive plants in the area near the creek, replacing these with native plantings.

4. Clean up any trash and junk in the section of Bean Creek that borders our campus.

5. Begin planning to program the area on First Fridays and with special small events to bring social and educational activities, conversations, and performances from commissioned artists.

6. Begin to collaborate with our neighborhood organizations and cultural partners on social and arts-focused gatherings.

7. Repair the parking lot area adjacent to the new restorative space.

8. Highlight the existing rain garden on our campus by replanting it with native pollinators.

9. Create an outdoor classroom and social space surrounded by native plants adjacent to Bean Creek.

10. Build a privacy gate that will include additional awnings and educational displays. This gate will hide away our dumpsters and restrict access to our storage area, creating a safer environment for young visitors.

This project was made possible through our Water World campaign with Patronicity & The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority and by the following donors:

Malina S. Bacon ; Polly Harrold ; Kimberley Pflueger ; Benjamin F. Rose ; Paul J. Hinton ; Beth Webber ; Holly J. Sommers ; Marisol M. Gouveia ; Hannah S. Campbell ; Norbert Krapf ; Heath Hurst ; Matthew L. Gonzales ; Shauta Marsh & Jim Walker ; Georgia Cravey ; Wendy Castillo ; Ursula David ; Raymond McMaster ; Molly Martin ; Matthew J. Rooney ; Jason Burk ; Jane A. Henegar ; Diana Mutz & Howard Schrott ; Bernie Price ; David & Caryn Anderson ; Joshua S. Compton ; Cari Guichelaar ; Frank & Katrina Basile ; Kerry Dinneen & Sam Sutphin ; Jungclaus-Campbell Co., Inc. Charitable Fund ; Ben & Connie Berg ; Linda & Cory Brundage ; Synscapes of Indiana, LLC ; Jenifer & Sean Brown ; Christopher & Ellie Clapp ; Katie & Bwana Clements ; Anne Laker & Joe Merrick ; Friends of Garfield Park ; Garfield Park Neighbors Association ; Cheryl Dillenback ; Katie Sanford & Stephen Evanoff ; Bean Creek Neighborhood Association via Villa Baptist Church ; Ed & Mary Jayne Mahern ; Patronicity & IHCDA ; the Big Car staff ; and the TeenWorks Summer 2024 crew.

This was also made possible through Central Indiana Community Foundation’s Summer Youth Program Fund, with Capital support from Lilly Endowment Inc. & Program support from Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation Inc. for the 2024 TeenWorks Summer Program at Tube Factory.

Thank you to all who made the Bean Creek outlook and Happiness Garden educational space possible!

Find more pictures on our Flickr.

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19 May 2024

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Our history of art and community in our neighborhood(s)

May 19, 2024 | 0 Comments

Big Car Collaborative started in 2004 as a way to support artists and the Fountain Square neighborhood where two of our co-founders, Shauta Marsh and Jim Walker, then lived. In 2011, Walker and Marsh found themselves priced out of Fountain Square when they needed a bigger house for their growing family. Fortunately, they found just the right home in Garfield Park — one neighborhood south of where they’d lived since 2000.

Welcomed by neighbors already leading important work in multiple associations (Garfield North, Garfield South, and Garfield East), Big Car began in 2011 utilizing its tools, experience, and network to support addressing things like:

• Identity and wayfinding signage for the neighborhood (these include a community gateway mural, the logo currently used by the Garfield Park Neighborhood Association and other murals),

• Safety and economic development and connectivity on Shelby Street (we co-led two Better Blocks and other events at what’s now the Garfield Brewery) and temporary safety improvements after the Red Line opened,

• Overall planning as a co-leader convening organization on the South Indy Quality of Life Plan,

• Cultural and community programming like Normal Coffee and hosting neighborhood meetings at our Tube Factory campus, and lots more.

Since 2011, we’ve joined neighborhood leaders like Bean Creek’s Bernie Price in advocating for safer streets here for those who walk and bike. This teamwork and the support of our elected officials has led to improvements like the hawk crosswalk flasher at Cruft and Shelby Street, better signals at Shelby and Southern intersection (which had no crosswalks just a few years ago), and speed bumps on Nelson Ave. We even worked with neighborhood artists and volunteers to paint street murals to make crossing safer in the park and at new stop signs in the blocks north of the park.

Another key outcome of neighbors working together on the Better Blocks in 2013 and 2014 was the Garfield North and Garfield South associations collaborated to each do a Better Block on each end of the neighborhood — volunteering to help each other as they tested out ideas for safer streets and temporarily filled vacant storefronts and lots with positive activity.

Neighbors soon realized it made little sense to be separate and formed a single association, the Garfield Park Neighbors Association, which our staff helped establish as a nonprofit with longtime neighborhood leaders like Jim Simmons and Ed Mahern. These things happened, also, with lots of leadership from current neighbor Aryn Schounce, a Big Car staff member at that time.

Along the way, we’ve been happy to support getting things started and see small businesses continue the work. For example, in 2018 Big Car also applied for and received a sizable grant to pilot the sunken beer garden for a summer in the Garfield Park Conservatory, paving the way for this ongoing favorite now operated by the Garfield Brewery. We’ve also enjoyed supporting impactful projects and programs in our neighborhood like the Garfield Park Farmers Market (with which we’ve partnered in multiple ways and often provided the mobile parklet to sit on under the shade sails since the market started in 2016).

People often ask how Big Car Collaborative landed with its home base in the Garfield Park and Bean Creek neighborhoods (our block is found within both official borders). Back in 2011, we had left our small gallery in Fountain Square and operated out of a pop-up for a few years we called Service Center for Culture and Community in the Lafayette Square area with a community space and large parking lot garden at an abandoned tire shop outside the mall. When that project ended in 2014 — and with us already having worked for four years in Garfield Park — we were fortunate to soon find both a great location and a fantastic partner in Tube Processing, who ended up donating much of the property they had on the block between Cruft Street and Nelson Avenue.

This work on the block, which began in 2015 based out of our Listen Hear space on Shelby (home of WQRT FM and once a place where we did an art show when it was an appliance store), now includes 21 buildings — including 18 long-term affordable homes for artists who are now vital and dedicated members of our community. One of these houses — fixed up by and named after neighbors Steve and Cari Guichelaar — includes a gallery that features artists from the neighborhood and two apartments for hosting visiting artists from around the world. Check out this video that shows what our campus looks like now.

While we have much more to come, Big Car has already brought several millions of dollars of investment to our neighborhood (mostly through foundation grants and donations). We employ 13 people on an ongoing basis — more than half of them neighborhood residents or people who grew up in Garfield Park.

All of our properties are owned by the nonprofit organization, Big Car Collaborative (other than some homes that are co-owned between Big Car and the artist residents as a way to ensure long-term affordability). That means none of these properties are owned or controlled by individuals or for-profit developers — ensuring the long-term affordability for artists and use of these facilities as community assets.

At this time of transition in our neighborhood, it’s important to differentiate between mission-driven, non-profit-owned cultural spaces and properties owned by for-profit developers who may use the arts and artists as a way to increase traffic to their buildings and temporarily fill empty space — boosting the attractiveness and value of the property. While for-profit owners understandably want to make money and build value, we believe it’s problematic to use the arts and artists without really sharing wealth or opportunities for ownership. This move — experienced in cities around the world — is sometimes called art washing. And it is often a step in the process of gentrification and displacement.

We anticipated this cycle would eventually come to our neighborhood as we teamed up over the years with other neighbors to improve the quality of life for residents — making the neighborhood more attractive and valuable. So we designed and invested in an approach to have our nonprofit and artists own and preserve much of our block as a long-term place for art and artists.

This strategy is central, also, to our next project — taking the 46,000-square-foot long-vacant factory building behind the current Tube Factory and bringing it to life with museum-quality galleries, artist studios, a performing arts and event space, small business incubator storefronts, and a restaurant and culinary center that offers learning and workforce development opportunities.

This project alone will be a $7 million investment in the arts, our community, and our neighborhood. And this building is a long-term investment in artists and small business people who won’t have to worry about their rents skyrocketing under a for-profit building owner. And the artists in our building will know this owner won’t be cashing in and selling the place to someone else who wants to turn the studios and galleries into something more lucrative — resulting in their displacement once again.

At Big Car, we’re proud of our deep connection to both the Garfield Park and Bean Creek neighborhoods. We feel lucky our campus is located in an area where both boundaries overlap. We work tirelessly, as neighbors ourselves, to support this place we call home. And — with the long-term help of so many neighbors, artists and partners — we’re excited about so much more to come!

24 Apr 2024

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Join our long-term affordable artist residency program

April 24, 2024 | 0 Comments

Big Car’s Artist and Public Life Residency (APLR) program – which offers affordable housing to artists who support the community – seeks artists of all disciplines for a discounted, nicely renovated rental home near Tube Factory artspace and Garfield Park. APLR artists enjoy access to Big Car facilities and support from this artist-focused community.
More on the home:

1 bedroom, 1 bath, new appliances (including washing and dryer), street side parking. $600 per month

APPLICATION CLOSES MAY 12
How does it work?

As an exchange for deeply discounted rent cost, artists dedicate about 16 hours per month to work with the public in the community. These hours can include time
on your own public-facing projects, related training and meetings, research, and time supporting our neighborhood, Big Car programs, and citywide efforts.
Artists share a detailed plan and goals for the upcoming year and beyond for their public work as part of APLR .
Resident artists share progress and plans.
Artists participate in group public engagement efforts on our block.
Artists have opportunities to participate in exhibition and collaboration opportunities. We encourage partnerships between resident artists, visiting artists, other local artists, and our staff artists.
Artists residents are communicative, collaborative, and considerate with our neighbors, Big Car staff, volunteers and partners.
Resident artists receive research, promotion, and training support from Big Car staff and others as they will represent our partnership in the community.
Resident artists have access to tools, resources and spaces on our campus.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A RESIDENT ARTIST?
We view the label of artists broadly to include all creatives, makers, visual artists, performers, culinary artists, writers, musicians, designers. Anyone who considers themselves an artist is eligible to apply. Click here to apply. (edited)

14 Dec 2023

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Help us build an artful, social creekside educational space

December 14, 2023 | 0 Comments

We’d love your help during this holiday season as we transform an overlooked spot along Bean Creek on our Tube Factory campus into a place for peaceful reflection, socializing, and learning about nature — a perfect gift for the ecosystem and humans alike!

From Dec. 13 through Jan. 13, we at Big Car Collaborative are raising $50,000 matched — dollar for dollar — through CreatINg Places, a program of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) that utilizes funds from the State of Indiana.

With this project called Water World: Creekside Social and Educational Space, artists at Big Car are teaming up with experts in landscape design and horticulture, neighbors, and other partners to restore and reconnect a section of Bean Creek behind Tube Factory as a beautiful and natural public asset.

Please donate online at www.patronicity.com/waterworld. All of these tax-deductible donations will be matched by IHCDA through Jan. 13. We can also accept offline donations via check sent to Big Car at 1125 Cruft Street, 46203. And we give back fun and artistic thank you gifts for your donations!

With your support, we’ll:

• Remove a section of asphalt along Bean Creek and relocate dumpsters and parking to create a green outdoor classroom and gathering area. This intimate space will feature landscaped paths surrounding native pollinator plants.

• Add stone steps down to Bean Creek, allowing visitors access to this year-round waterway enjoyed by fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals like muskrats and mink.

• Clean up trash in the section of Bean Creek that borders our campus. Program the area on First Fridays and with special small events to bring social and educational activities, conversations, and performances from commissioned artists.

• Collaborate with our neighborhood organizations (Bean Creek and Garfield Park) and Reconnecting to Our Waterways on social, educational, and arts-focused gatherings.

• Repair the parking lot adjacent to the new restorative space and paint murals on the pavement. This improved lot will also be easily closed to cars and used for events.

How else can you help? Share the word about this opportunity with friends and family and through social media using the link www.patronicity.com/waterworld

And join us for a donation-optional art opening and fundraiser celebration as part of our Jan. 5 First Friday at Tube Factory artspace. All proceeds and in-person donations from that day will go toward this campaign. As always, we thank our friends at Sun King or their ongoing support.

05 Oct 2023

A Conversation with “Weathering” Author Dr. Arline T. Geronimus

October 5, 2023 | 0 Comments

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Arline T. Geronimus, author of “Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society” and professor in the School of Public Health and research professor in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

Hosted by Women on a Mission and facilitated by John Krull with an introduction by Tamara Winfrey-Harris, the evening will provide an opportunity to learn about the physiological effects of living in marginalized communities that bear the brunt of racial, ethnic, religious and class discrimination to better understand the causes of health inequities in Indiana.

Dr. Geronimus will discuss her groundbreaking book and the decades of research that led to the term “weathering” and all that it entails. The conversation will take place at Indiana Landmarks Center, located at 1201 Central Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana. Reservations are required. Admission is free.

About Dr. Arline T. Geronimus

Dr. Arline T. Geronimus is a public health researcher and professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, where she also is affiliated with the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.

About Women on a Mission

Recognizing that systemic stress can lead to poor physical and mental health, we seek to engage allies and partners in identifying and addressing the root causes and impact of stress, build experiences that lift and heal us, and improve access to physical and mental health care in Indiana.

The first event of the yearlong series adopts “Weathering: Extraordinary Stress in Ordinary People in an Unjust Society” and its author Dr. Arline T. Geronimus to learn about the physiological and mental effects of living in marginalized communities that bear the runt of racial, ethnic, religious, and class discrimination and to understand causes of population health inequities.

Big Car Collaborative and our community radio station, 99.1 WQRT FM, are pleased to support this important community event.

22 Sep 2023

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Announcing the 2023 Power Plant Grant Awardees

September 22, 2023 | 0 Comments

Big Car Collaborative, has regranted a total of $60,000 to artists living and working in the Indianapolis area. These Power Plant Grants — made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts based in New York — fund visual artists and collectives producing public-facing work that’s experimental and brings new energy to the city’s arts community.

Big Car is one of 32 regional regranting organizations across the United States working to support artists via funds from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “We are grateful to our Regional Regranting Program partners at Big Car Collaborative for their ongoing dedication to supporting artists in the Indianapolis area,” says Khadija Nia Adell, Regional Regranting Program Manager, “The Warhol Foundation is excited to see the projects awarded in this cycle come to fruition and to continue to help artists thrive and make thoughtful and exciting contributions to their communities.”

This is the third round of Power Plant Grants in Indianapolis. The program started here in 2020 as emergency grants distributed during the height of the pandemic. Big Car also awarded $60,000 in project grants to artists and artist-run spaces in 2021 and 2022.

“Power Plant Grants energize the Indianapolis arts community and support visual artists by encouraging them to grow by taking chances, realizing untapped potential, trying

experimental projects, collaborating with each other, and bringing work to unusual places,” said Big Car program director Shauta Marsh. “We’re excited by the quality, dedication, and innovation we see in the work of these artists in our city. We’re so glad to be able to support them and what they’re bringing to audiences in Indianapolis.”

Power Plant grants support visual artists who live, work, or run spaces in Indianapolis with six project grants of $10,000. This year’s awardees were selected by past Power Plant winner Andrea Jandernoa, Indiana-based artist Kelvin Burzon, and Cierra Rembert of SPACES in Cleveland, Ohio.

These are the funded projects for 2023:

Zola Lamothe “Ransom Place: Unveiling a Forgotten Legacy.” This project will center around recreating household and community scenes on the Indiana University Indianapolis campus where people’s homes, churches, and livelihoods once stood. Lamothe’s goal is that viewers will be able to not only witness the juxtaposition of what the land housed then and now but also bear witness to what was lost and wonder what could have been. The work will be released and shared with the community along with information about Indiana laws and future reform to avoid gentrification and displacement. In addition to the public gallery exhibition, Lamothe also plans to donate prints to the Through 2 Eyes organization that offers Indianapolis walking tours on the city’s history.

Lamothe hopes to release a photo book of the project that includes quotes and interviews from those who used to live in Ransom Place and their descendants. Her goal is for the book to be available in public libraries, the Indiana University Indianapolis bookstore, and the Indiana State Museum gallery shop.

Lauren Daughtery: Transformal Textiles

Textile Transformations will focus on themes of grief and loss, transformation, and empowerment through textile work. Using textiles related to a late child (crib sheets, clothing, colors associated with the nursery, etc), mothers will create their own textile work to memorialize their child and to provide a process-based approach for containing and transforming thoughts and emotions.

Textile work has been found to be beneficial in trauma work, allowing women to cope with grief, depression, and other physical ailments. Working in textiles provides sensory stimulation, promotes a feeling of centeredness or grounding, and can be used as a

coping mechanism that can improve mood. This grant will support two iterations of Textile Transformations. Any mother who has experienced loss of a child due to miscarriage, birth trauma, post-birth complications, or any other means will be invited to participate. Sessions will be led by an art therapist and practicing artist alongside a licensed mental health counselor. There will be an optional exhibition for the participants.

Kelsey Simpson: Railroad City Bookmobile

Railroad City Bookmobile is an extension of the work that the locally based Gluestick group does within the Indianapolis community including teaching workshops, distributing free art supplies, publishing collaborative zines, and hosting an annual festival. As the digital world takes over, books and zine making are becoming more like art objects. Our plan is to fill a small vehicle with zines, comic books, and general interest books and distribute them across Indianapolis. In the long run we would love to make connections with community representatives and make return visits to certain locations. We envision ourselves having an item for everyone. We would love to connect with Hoosiers and ask what they would like to read or share with others. We want to see the bookmobile become a collaborative project with all who encounter it.

The Power Plant Grant will be used to purchase a vehicle and transform it into the Railroad City Bookmobile. This mobile workshop will make its public debut at a Read-in event with workshops and other creative opportunities for visitors at the Major Taylor Skatepark on the near westside of Indianapolis. Gluestick plans to document the Read-in experience and publish it as a zine to promote the Railroad City Bookmobile.

Bryn Jackson and April Knauber: Markings of Remembrance.
This collaboration engages a form of Filipino storytelling through abstract patterns found in ancestral body art, or tatak. By engaging stateside practitioners, ancestral objects, colonial-era manuscripts and contemporary texts, Jackson and Knauber see their ultimate goal to be creating space for collective remembrance and understanding of an artform nearly lost to hundreds of years of religious and political subjugation of the indigenous peoples of the islands now known as the Philippines.

Prior to the creation of new sculptural and video works, the project will consist of the formation of a cohort of Filipinos interested in researching their lineage and sharing their findings and personal experiences, continuing a long tradition of cultivating collective memory through oral history, which will inform a tailored curriculum through which the group will learn about the archetypal symbols central to various Filipino tattoo traditions.

Jackson and Knauber will research and share individual histories, the islands from which their families migrated, the languages spoken within their families, and the roles family members held within their communities.

Carlos Sosa: “Reflexiónes de Los Júziers: A New Visual Ethnonym and A New Consciousness Portrait Series”

Sosa will produce and exhibit a dozen multimedia artworks — portraits, dioramas, and textile pieces — with accompanying text in Spanish and English. The work is based on decades-old photos of Hispanic individuals and families with roots in Latin America who chose to call Indiana their home. The artworks will be displayed in high-traffic areas in multiple parts of Indiana. Also, during scheduled discussions and public meetings, these images will foster dialogue to address issues of identity and immigration, migration and borders in our own lives.

Sosa’s goal is for these works to help us think more about identity, survival, energy, and movement. Today’s Júziers will hopefully connect with “their” origin stories: a collection of faces and narratives that is easy to explore and make their own. His approach is focused on the belief that images will reflect or provide access to a period’s views and actively participate in acknowledging those views de vida in the first place. A history of images has an impact on remaking, which itself constitutes a valuable record and purpose of people’s lived lives.

Evren Wilder Elliott: Imagining Home: Liberatory Theatre and Speculative Solutions for Housing Justice”

Elliot’s social practice and performance art project, “Imagining Home: Liberatory Theatre and Speculative Solutions for Housing Justice” aims to utilize critical dialogue, art and liberatory theater to examine the housing crisis in Indianapolis, specifically among the experiences of Black, Latine, Indigenous, LGBTQ2S+, and other historically marginalized communities.

By gathering community members affected by housing insecurity, as well as partnering with local organizations within the Indianapolis Housing Continuum of Care, we will engage in play, improvisation, imagination, and storytelling practices to collectively envision solutions and policies that can drive meaningful change. This project will employ a participatory approach, inviting individuals to become co-creators and active agents in the exploration of housing issues. Through a series of workshops, participants

will be encouraged to develop their narratives through story circles, written accounts, performance, image-making, and other creative mediums.

24 Apr 2023

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Lockerbie Pop-Up Public Place

April 24, 2023 | 0 Comments

Lockerbie Night Market from Big Car Collaborative on Vimeo.

In October 2017, our Indianapolis Spark Placemaking crew teamed up with CitiMark and Gershman Partners to bring short-term public programming to the Lockerbie Marketplace small park area between Alabama, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont streets in the heart of Downtown. This previously underutilized green space is surrounded by a grocery store and other office and retail spaces and is located just off of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. Due to successful events and programming, we were invited back.

Now, we are currently in the midst of the 2024 Lockerbie Place season, hosting weekly Lunch at Lockerbie Place!

Lunch at Lockerbie Place
Spend your lunchtime with us at Lockerbie Place every Thursday from May until the beginning of October in 2024. Stop by to enjoy the various activities that this hidden downtown green space has to offer along with a soundtrack provided by live musicians from right here in your city. Challenge a friend to a game of ping pong or foosball, play giant Jenga, and find your new favorite musician. At Lockerbie Marketplace green space, food truck from 11:30 am-1:30 pm and live music 12-1 pm.

2024 Lockerbie Place Lunch Thursdays:

May: 2, 9, 16, 23, + 30

June: 6, 13, 20, + 27

July: 11, 18, 25 (closed for Fourth of July holiday)

August: 1, 8, 15, 22, + 29

Sept.: 5, 12, 19, + 26

Oct.: 3

Check @sparkplaces on Instagram for Lockerbie lineups + updates!

All events are free at 320 N New Jersey Street in the greenspace right off the Cultural Trail, next to Needler’s Market.

13 Jan 2023

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Thanks for helping us meet our CreatINg Places match!

January 13, 2023 | 0 Comments

We want to thank our individual donors who helped us with a successful campaign to raise funds matched by the IHCDA CreatINg Places program with the State of Indiana. This campaign — which brought in $50,000 from donors matched by $50,000 from IHCDA — is supporting improvements underway to our Cruft Street Commons campus and adjacent block. Many donated anonymously and we aren’t listing their names.

Indianapolis Foundation, PNC Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Buckingham Foundation, Jenifer Brown, Diana Mutz, Ed Mahern, Ursula David, Marianne Glick, Katie Clements, Frank and Katrina Basile, Anne Laker and Joe Merrick, Jane Henegar, Emily Masengale, Russell Clemens, David Yosha, Stephen B Gates, Ben & Connie Berg, Janet Fry, Connie Christofanelli, Martha Steele, James C Kelly, Kurt Bokelman, Carlie Foreman, Steve Guichelaar, Thomas Batista, David Anderson, Chelsea DuKate, Daniel E. Marquis, Alex Tourney, Jim Walker, Katie Carlson, Bethany N Bak, Georgia Mason, Molly Martin, Iris L. Williamson, Mali Jeffers, Paul J Hinton, Joan Wyand, Sarah Spiewak, Sarah J Stiles, Felix Medina

With your help, our staff and many artists will team up to further beautify our block for people to celebrate art, poetry, and each other at a welcoming public place filled with color, light, and nature.

All of this work – centered around community collaboration – continues to develop social infrastructure that helps make places inclusive, equitable, and comfortable. Thank you for your investment in Big Car Collaborative and for sharing our belief that art and vibrant public spaces are crucial to the quality of life for everyone!

Journal

Big Car Collaborative’s Year in Review Highlights for 2024