The Division of Liberal Arts at IUPUC has received a $4,000 Welcoming Community Arts and Culture Grant from the Heritage Fund – the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County for a project titled, “Discovering Columbus: The Experience of Women Immigrants.”
The goal of the Welcoming Community Arts & Culture Grant Program is “To foster the community’s environment of inclusion by supporting arts initiatives that promote collaboration, knowledge-sharing, innovation, and diversity.” Grant-funded projects will complement the August 26 opening of Exhibit Columbus by celebrating our community’s commitment to inclusiveness and diversity. Exhibit Columbus will draw residents and visitors to downtown Columbus with 15 temporary installations of public art and architecture created by designers from around the country.
An interdisciplinary group of faculty including Anna Carmon, Communication Studies Program Director, Doug Gardner, History Program Coordinator, George Towers, Head of the Division of Liberal Arts, Kathy Wills, English Program Director, and Aimee Zoeller, Coordinator of Sociology and Women’s Studies, explored how IUPUC could contribute to the Heritage Fund’s efforts. They agreed that immigrant women are an important yet largely unnoticed part of the Columbus community and decided to find a way to help them tell their stories. To support Exhibit Columbus, the IUPUC grant-writers are particularly interested in making visible the ways in which immigrant women use and value downtown Columbus’ Arts District.
The IUPUC team drew inspiration from the best-selling book Humans of New York Stories, by Brandon Stanton. By pairing photos of New York City residents with brief auto-ethnographies, Stanton models a powerful communication vehicle. The team plans to conduct workshops, led by Kathy Wills and Matt Rothrock, the Coordinator of IUPUC’s Academic Resource Center, to help participants put their Columbus experience in their own words. Brandi Rund, who leads a double life as a team leader in IUPUC’s Office of Information Technology and as a professional photographer, will schedule photo shoots with participants to create evocative portraits. Echoing Humans of New York, each participant’s portrait will be captioned with their prose.
Connections with community organizations are an important source of support for the project. For example, an ecumenical group organized by St. Bartholomew Catholic Church also received a Welcoming Community Arts and Culture Grant to help the local immigrant community relate their experiences. Project leader Felipe Martinez, Reverend at the First Presbyterian Church, has provided the IUPUC team with valuable guidance. The Columbus Area Multi-Ethnic Organization (CAMEO) will also advise the IUPUC project leaders on recruiting participants and matters of intercultural communication.
During Exhibit Columbus, the IUPUC group will display immigrant women’s experiences through poster displays at downtown venues. Following the exhibit, digital versions of the presentations will be available online and on DVD. The team’s overarching goals are that “By expressing and sharing their experience of Columbus, we will increase immigrant women’s engagement with the community as a whole. We also expect participants form lasting relationships with each other while strengthening their connection to Columbus.”
For more information, contact Aimee Zoeller at anzoelle@iupuc.edu, or 812.348.7330.