Indy 5x5 finalists announced

The Harrison Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the finalists for the final 5x5 Arts and Innovation Prize Competition, Connect Your City, Connect Your Neighborhood, to take place on Friday, September 6.   Music, beer and food beginning at 5:30. Presentations start promptly at 6:30pm in the Harrison Center’s historic sanctuary.  The Harrison Center received over 50 outstanding applications for consideration.   The 5×5: Indianapolis Arts and Innovation Prize is a contest designed to foster community building and art-focused innovations in central Indiana.  Five finalists will present an innovative idea involving the arts and Indianapolis urban neighborhoods.   The winning project will receive $10,000 to make it happen. The finalists for the competition are:

1. Brent Aldrich -- “Near Eastside Neighborhood Arts,” a neighborhood based public arts program which will implement small public art projects in all 20 NESCO neighborhoods. 2. Tiffany Benedict-Berkson -- the “Hi, Indy Neighbor” party (series) to welcome new neighbors to Indianapolis. 3. Marilyn Gatin -- “I AM INDY,” an interactive, human-powered map-based sculpture located along the Monon Trail. 4. Atsu Kpotufe -- 40Kkm, a multi-disciplinary exhibition by Indianapolis’s international community artists in a building anchoring the Peace Walk. 5. Adrian Pumphrey -- Indianapolis Young Songwriter’s Guild, a place for young musicians to come together to express, create, and showcase their work.

HCA is grateful for our connections in the city who are sponsoring and judging this event:  Lacy Leadership AssociationPattern Magazinetwo21The Platform and Urban Times.

Funded by CICF, the Efroymson Family Fund and the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, this year-long idea-pitching series awards $10,000 to the winning idea at each of four events. Previous 5×5 events: Big Car’s “Revolutionize Your City: Arts + Technology = Innovation” was February 8, and Craig Mince of the Indy Film Fest took home $10k in winnings for his Pop-Up Roving Cinema ideaPeople for Urban Progress hosted “Make Your City: Make It Happen” on April 12, where Kirstin Northenscold and “The Cool Bus,” a moveable classroom/library retrofitted inside an old school bus, grabbed the prize.  Indy Hub hosted “Face your City: An Urban Love Affair” on June 28. $10,000 went to Malina Jeffers and her “I Am an Artist” project.