An evening of documentary storytelling, live conversations, poetry, music, and video art at Kan Kan Cinema.
Who gets to shape the future of a place, and whose memories get carried forward?
For more than 150 years, the Indiana Women's Prison was a place of confinement, punishment, and profound harm. But for the women who lived there, it was also a place where friendships formed, communities emerged, and complicated relationships with the idea of "home" took shape.
City Rising is excited to welcome Marissa Byers, Corey Ewing, and Daniel Gray-Kontar to the Beyond These Gates project team as Poetic Inquiry Data Artists. Through their residencies, Byers, Ewing, and Gray-Kontar will help shape the project’s exploration of the former Indiana Women’s Prison, using poetry as a form of inquiry to surface stories, generate connections, and deepen understanding of the women who called the prison home; the complicated relationship between the prison and Indianapolis’ Near Eastside; and the ways this site, its history, and the people connected to it might be remembered and reimagined.
Join us Tuesday, Sept. 22 from 1-3pm for a workshop and introduction to Collective Impact. We’ll discuss this framework for social change, how to do it, and share some lessons from the City Rising studio notebook.
Join us Thursday, Sept. 17 at 1pm for a conversation with Dr. Zelideh Martinez Hoy, as we discuss compassion fatigue, somatic awareness, cultural labor, and sustainable service.
City Rising is seeking a graphic facilitator / live illustrator to visually document and interpret a two-day gathering in Indianapolis on October 12–13, 2026. The selected artist will listen, synthesize, and translate conversations, ideas, questions, and connections into an original visual record using illustration, diagrams, words, symbols, and other visual forms. We’re especially interested in work that is thoughtful, accessible, legible, and engaging for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities and their families. Graphic facilitators, illustrators, designers, visual practitioners, and emerging artists are encouraged to apply.
