BIG CAR COLLAbORATIVE CREATIVE PLAcEMAKING

orking in collaboration with others , Big Car ser ves as artists and designers embedded in efforts to improve the livability of our city. We work with neighborhood leaders to offer engaging public programming that helps make places welcoming and vibrant for all people. Big Car is the lead organization working in creative placemaking here.
Our current CP efforts include: Working to advocate for creative placemaking as a strategy, helping artists and residents better understand its concepts, approaches, and ideas. This happens by hosting gatherings, classes, presentations, demonstrations, and idea sharing sessions (including portions of TEDxIndianapolis 2014). This comes through mentoring and advising artists and other organizations and by researching creative placemaking with visits to other cities, attending conferences, and reading and information gathering. And we raise awareness with an annual city artist residency program. This fall, were bringing in Peter Gibson, a street artist from Montreal who adapts lines, turn arrows and crosswalks in clever ways with stencils. Hell involve volunteers from the annual Lilly Day of Service in this work. Serving as lead artists with the Reconnecting to Our Waterways initiative. Big Car has been embedded in this project from its start, offering creative ideas and leadership for projects and programs. We are currently partnering with ROW on its creative placemaking workshops and conversations and a related 5x5 Arts & Innovation competition. Big Car staff supports ROW by providing graphic design, documentation, and program and project management leadership and support. We also chair the Little Eagle Creek and Aesthetics element committees. Furthering our neighborhoodbased work on the Far Eastside including a gallery in a Mexican grocery store and mobile art making during summers at area apartment complexes and placemaking to improve walkability and bus stops. Expand our focus on the Near Southside, helping lead a Better Block at on the south side of Garfield Park and sparking creative efforts to connect the park to Fountain Square to the north and the University of Indianapolis to the south. Operating Service Center for Culture and Community our large public demonstration and intervention place, neighborhood garden, meeting space, and collective workshop in the Lafayette Square area. The neighborhood is working with us to find a permanent home (that could also include live-work art studios) in an area closer to Little Eagle Creek targeted for mixed-use redevelopment. Support creative and engaging public program and project work Downtown (especially with an outdoor performance art event called Art in Odd Places at Monument Circle, and collaborations at Old City Hall and City Market).

615 N. Alabama #119 | Indianapolis, IN 46204 | www.bigcar.org

WHAT DOES BIG CAR NEEd?

P eop L e Now in our 10th year, Big Car has much experience in making our funding stretch and accomplishing a lot with a little. Our budget for 2014 will land at about $750,000 with a large Lilly-funded national mural project accounting for $250,000 of that total. Were looking at an annual number, with local funding only, of about $500,000. This allows us to have six fulltime employees (executive director, creative director, program director, program staffer, a builders and a community organizer). Of the six, two come to us in partnership with AmeriCorps programs. We also utilize another six part-time people and are establishing a fellowship program for connecting with and developing new talent to support our work. What we need to help our creative placemaking work flourish are: Dedicated full-time coordinator of our placemaking efforts Full-time coordinators assigned to each neighborhood (we currently share this work and use part-time resident artists). Administrative support to help us comprehensively survey, track, and measure. Ultimately, creative placemaking is all about people. Our work is very focused on programming is labor intensive: involves a lot of community organizing with conversations and meetings, and grassroots marketing. We are constantly being asked to do more, to help. We want to! So our top need is time.

Garfield Park Better Block

F A c I L I T I es Workshop: With so much of our work involving building and making things, a large and flexible studio workshop like we have at Ser vice Center but further improved and ours long-term is crucial to our success and to the success of creative placemaking in our city. This will also be a resource that we can share with other organizations and artists, building community through collaboration. Storefront space: We see a presence on the Shelby Street Corridor near Garfield Park as crucial to helping spark economic development and cultural vitality there. This space which might include a coffee shop would ser ve the community as a location for gatherings, bring art and creativity opportunities to residents, and be a location where neighbors and artists can work together to improve the neighborhood. It would bring a muchneeded positive and vibrant presence to the street. And it will help connect the energy in Fountain Square south to the park and the University of Indianapolis.

615 N. Alabama #119 | Indianapolis, IN 46204 | www.bigcar.org