Arthrive Public Art Archive

More information is available at https://arthriveblog.wordpress.com/

Arthrive is a community-focused public art project. It aims to bring art to underserved communities by connecting people through art engagement while creating a communal art archive. The public art created is copyrighted Public Domain through the Creative Commons and shared in the community.

This program initiative is currently being documented and developed in Indianapolis in zip code 46203. Core funding for initial design was made possible through the 2021 Power Plant Grant Indianapolis. Community feedback and development included creative survey and artist lead mini workshops at local events including Open Studio, First Friday Gallery Night, Garfield Park Arts and Music Festival 2022, Farmers Markets 2022, Artists Market 2022, Street Art Festival at Garfield Art Center 2023, Yoke Pavillion Community Center 2023, and alternative bookstore Indy Reads 2023-2024.

By meeting people in public spaces with art engagement activities, the project Arthrive aims to create art that "lives" in a shared community space by making art accessible to all.

Early projects which shaped the social art practice component:

Art as a Social Practice is a new field in the arts, but my experience of working with the public as an artist goes back to the early 2k. The first public engagement project I helped to develop was a student organization at IUPUI. In 2002, Indianapolis neighborhoods were hit by a series of 7 tornadoes, which damaged the city and displaced residents. I worked with other art students to build an emergency darkroom program to restore lost family photographs damaged during the storms. Working with other students, we set up a darkroom and community drop-off program, and the response and need were impressive. This student-led program was named Art from the Ashes. This was my first experience as a young artist, which shaped my desire to build art projects that invested or helped meet community needs.

Volunteering my design/photographic skills to other organizations or nonprofits has also been critical in shaping the social component of my art practice. Volunteering as a photographer, I use a borrowed camera and donate my images to the organization or group. This experience started in Japan, where I was invited to participate as a photographer in a rural educational school. In exchange for the program experience over a summer, I donated the memory cards and edited a series of photographs for this nonprofit and the participants in the school. Later, I traveled with the program to Sri Lanka, meeting NGOs and graduating participants who built micro-loans for women-led programs.

Social Practice Artist Statement

A life goal of mine is to retire to peace-corps as an artist and an educator. Volunteer-ship is central to my art practice in social impact, justice, or community-centered art. After teaching in higher education for 18+ years, after 2020, I shifted my teaching practice to where I hoped to make more of a felt impact in my immediate neighborhood. As a multidisciplinary artist, I pull from design, photography, printmaking, and film skills. I'm interested in connecting people through collaboration. 

Practices that incorporate post-traumatic growth through artmaking inspire my art practice. As a teacher, I ask myself, how can I push into my neighborhood or city? Living with art is a human essential that impacts the social health of a community or quality of life. As an artist, I'm interested in how making art can help people have empathy and cultural connection. 

In approaching art as a social practice, I ask myself what strengths or skills I can volunteer to my community—at the same time, helping to bridge a felt need to connect to others through the process of artmaking and shared community.