Think Farm: Call for Ideas

Think Farm is a themed big-idea-sharing event from some our area’s leading creative minds. Held at Big Car’s Service Center location in the Lafayette Square area, Think Farm will feature six people who will present their ideas in timed slideshow fashion and have an opportunity to talk with others to build possible future collaborations. The event will also offer an interactive way for all attendees to get engaged in the ideas process and contribute their thoughts to the mix. Big Car will also display all of the ideas that come in at Service Center on the night of the event. 

Submission deadline: Oct. 25 at midnight
Submit via email to: Jim Walker, Big Car executive director at jim@bigcar.org
Presenters announced: Nov. 1

Guidelines for submission:
Write a compelling 400-word description of a great idea you have for Indianapolis, for Indiana, for America, or for the world. Talk about how your idea would work in reality and what sort of difference you think it would make. Share why you are so excited about it. Your idea must be linked with the current Spirit & Place theme, The Body. See details about the theme below. Along with your brief description, submit three images that somehow illustrate your idea. Submissions that don’t include images are not eligible for inclusion. Low-resolution image files are fine.

A panel of community leaders will select the six strongest ideas for presenting at Think Farm on Nov. 11 at 8 p.m. If you are chosen, you’ll assemble a timed, Pecha Kucha style slideshow (20 slides on screen for 20 seconds each). All selected presenters who do their timed slideshows on Nov. 11 will receive a stipend of $200. Only the person who submits the idea can present it at Think Farm. Other ideas submitted but not selected for presentation will be displayed in Service Center as part of a Think Farm exhibition on view that night. More at www.bigcar.org 

When: 8 p.m. on Nov. 11, 2011 at Service Center for Culture and Community
Where: 3819 Lafayette Rd. Indianapolis, IN 46254 
Cost: $10 (presenters free + 1 guest)

Think Farm happens as part of Spirit & Place Festival and is presented by Big Car, Indiana Humanities, Spirit & Place, Pecha Kucha Indy, and Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center.

About the theme, The Body (From Spirit & Place)
Through its senses, gifts, and limitations, the body interprets our experience of the world. How we perceive, nourish, and care for the body—our own and others—is shaped by culture, environment, faith, politics, technology, medicine, and more.

The 2011 festival theme invites us to consider the complexities and questions surrounding the human form. Programs might examine healthcare, bioethics, sexuality, and gender identity. Aesthetic explorations might reveal the body itself as art, or explore how body adornment and alteration express both outward identity and inner life. Sports programs might explore Indiana’s rich basketball legacy or the role of sports in building community. Faith-based events might examine meditation and fasting, burial rituals, or the relationship between body and soul.

About Spirit & Place  (citywide on Nov. 4-13, 2011)
The award-winning Spirit & Place Festival is Indiana’s largest civic festival. Held annually in November since 1996, this Chautauqua-like event is a signature civic engagement project for IUPUI that reaches approximately 18,000 people each year. Its purpose is to promote civic engagement, respect for diversity, and public imagination by providing a distinctive marketplace for ideas—expressed through the arts, religion, and humanities—that fosters innovative expressions and new opportunities for understanding issues of importance to Central Indiana. Spirit & Place is a collaborative community project managed by The Polis Center, a self- supporting unit of the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI.

Each year, artists and authors, entrepreneurs and neighborhood organizers, and pastors and scholars, come together with neighbors, families, and friends to explore an annual theme through 40+ programs created by over 100 community organizations. These adjudicated events, which range from exhibits and performances to workshops and panel discussions, are held in a variety of venues throughout Central Indiana including museums, concert halls, community centers, places of worship, educational institutions, and more. On average, 75 percent of programs are offered free of charge.