A Year at the HC: 2020
Can you believe it? We won! We won the Governor’s Arts Award, our State’s highest honor to recognize excellence in arts leadership. The Governor’s announcement in October was such an encouraging end to a very hard 2020. Thank you to those who nominated us. We are grateful.
As you can imagine, the Harrison Center started 2020 with a full schedule of construction projects, creative placemaking partnerships and art exhibit plans. COVID-19 and a heightened awareness of racial injustice demanded a reinvention of our service to the community. Like all of you, we had never imagined a pandemic, quarantining or working remotely, but we quickly adapted our favorite programs to social distanced alternatives. Here are some examples:
PorchPartyIndy was reinvented as #SocialDistancePorching, inviting neighbors to get up from their couches/laptops and step out to their front porch/yard every day at 5 PM to practice their “Hey neighbor” wave. COVID was a reminder to us all that we need each other. Huge thanks to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for their continued partnership.
Our Independent Music + Art Festival became an eight-episode radio show, Music IN Place, airing on WQRT. It is now available as a podcast on the Harrison Center’s Soundcloud. Listen Here!
First Fridays were reinvented with virtual tours (thanks WFYI and WTHR), gallery blood drives, art window walks, unveiling public art and new social distanced gallery tours/senior hours for safe viewing.
Art Dish took a break and then became smaller and more intimate, as we continued our fine wine, dining and art experience to help artists build relationships. Tickets are available for 2021.
PreEnact Indy was reinvented from a physical gathering to nightly projections of neighborhood-honoring videos, using the Polk building as a DIY drive-in. We also made 400 doorstep deliveries—care packages with art, humanities, and neighborhood history materials. Thank you Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership and Indiana Humanities for helping us invite everyone to be a part of the story.
2020 was a time for innovation, but also a time to continue celebrating the stories of our long term neighbors, the Greatriarchs. We added four new Greatriarch portraits, continuing our tradition of hanging them on 16th Street. We dove deeper into their stories through producing a devised theater performance and video of Rasheeda’s Freedom Day. Simultaneously, Mayor Hogsett declared July 14, 2020 as “Rasheeda’s Freedom Day." We celebrated with the namesake’s daughter, Joanna Lenoir, in Martindale-Brightwood.
Our Cultural Entrepreneur program continues to thrive with interns who were willing to work remotely and by social distance. We hosted 25 interns from Herron High School, Arsenal Tech, IUPUI, Ivy Tech, Ball State, Alabama State, Covenant, Indiana Wesleyan, North Central, and Cathedral High School.
COVID forced a new art practice. If you missed them the first time, you can still see our social distance hoop skirts, scone deliveries by drone, artisanal masks, Zoom backgrounds, restored smokestack spewing colorful “smoke,” and dance videos with Martha Graham Dance Company principal dancer Xin Ying on social media.
During COVID, our artists felt supported by the community. Here are some highlights:
Shamira Wilson and William Denton Ray were commissioned by the Arts Council for racial justice and COVID themed public art.
Jingo de la Rosa, Megan Jefferson, and Quincy Owens participated in Indy Art and Seek.
Johnny McKee, our community curator, installed our new gallery at PACE on Keystone to help us serve returning citizens.
We welcomed Derrick Carter as a studio artist and celebrated with him as the State Museum acquired one of his pieces for their collection.
Abi Ogle installed new work, Natural Disaster, and collaborated with composer William A. Peacock, who wrote a new score which premiered live at First Friday, in conversation with her work.
We hosted artists from Greece, Japan, Hungary, Berlin, and beyond for residencies at the Harrison Center and sent three artists to India to participate in the Art for Change residency.
We completed a $3.1 million project to make our building and programs more accessible, installing a karaoke elevator, a rooftop classroom/deck, an interior slide, an open-air gallery, a dog friendly green space with a human hamster wheel, and a restored smokestack that spews colorful plumes. We are grateful to the Lilly Endowment and the Allen Whitehill Clowes Foundation for making this project possible.
Other key partners supporting our work include the Arts Council of Indianapolis, Black Ink, City of Indianapolis, Indiana Arts Commission, Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, Central Indiana Community Foundation, Indianapolis Foundation, Speck Fund, Summer Youth Program Fund, Netherleigh Fund, Noyes Fund, Divers Family Foundation, Patronicity/Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority and generous people like you.
Receiving the Governor’s Arts Award was a gift. The art on our annual letter envelopes this year is our gift to you. Artist Kipp Normand restored his own vintage printing press and created these envelopes to speak to our love of art and story. (Click here to see a video of the envelopes being created!) By donating to the Harrison Center, you build the story of Indianapolis. Please consider helping with a tax-deductible donation, which can be made at www.harrisoncenter.org/annual-fund.
Thank you for partnering with us,
Joanna Taft
Executive Director