Request for Qualifications (RFQ): Beyond These Gates Poetic Inquiry Data Artist Residency
Photo provided by Mirror Indy
Poetic Inquiry Data Artist Residency Request for Qualifications (RFQ)
Beyond These Gates
Apply here.
About the Project
Beyond These Gates is a public humanities, storytelling, and memory project exploring the histories, memories, and ongoing meanings of the former Indiana Women's Prison on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis.
Drawing on oral histories, interviews, archival research, field observations, historical records, photographs, artifacts, and community dialogue, the project seeks to better understand what it means to live beside, within, remember, and imagine a place shaped by incarceration, labor, gender, community, displacement, care, resilience, and transformation.
While the project incorporates multiple forms of evidence and documentation, the primary materials for this residency will be interviews and oral histories collected with women who once called the Indiana Women's Prison home.
Beyond These Gates recognizes that some forms of knowledge resist conventional analysis. Stories often contain emotions, contradictions, absences, tensions, memories, and questions that cannot be fully understood through traditional research methods alone. Poetry, spoken word, and artistic inquiry can create space for alternative ways of knowing, remembering, and making meaning.
To support this work, Beyond These Gates seeks a Poetic Inquiry Data Artist to join the project as an artistic collaborator, interpretive researcher, and creative sensemaker.
Residency Purpose
The selected artist will engage project materials through poetic inquiry, speculative interpretation, and humanizing analysis.
Rather than summarizing findings or producing promotional content, the artist will work alongside the project team to explore emerging themes, questions, provocations, ruptures, contradictions, and possibilities revealed through interviews and related source materials.
This role is rooted in inquiry rather than certainty. We are seeking an artist who is comfortable working with ambiguity, complexity, and unfinished understandings.
The selected artist will not be expected to represent the experiences of participants. Instead, they will contribute original artistic interpretations that invite deeper reflection, dialogue, and meaning-making.
Scope of Engagement
The Poetic Inquiry Data Artist will be invited to:
Review and engage project materials
Participate in periodic interpretation and reflection sessions
Explore themes, questions, tensions, and emerging patterns within project materials
Engage interviews as primary source material while drawing connections across archival and historical sources
Develop poetic and spoken-word responses informed by the research process
Contribute creative interpretations that may be incorporated into project storytelling and public engagement activities
Collaborate with project staff on the integration of artistic works into project outputs
Materials may include:
Interview transcripts
Oral histories
Field notes
Historical records
Archival documents
Photographs and visual materials
Site observations
Community-generated artifacts and ephemera
Secondary historical research
Anticipated Artistic Outputs
While final outputs will be developed collaboratively, the residency is expected to result in:
Four to six original spoken-word or poetic works
Participation in interpretation and reflection sessions with the project team
Audio recordings suitable for integration into a limited-series podcast
One live public performance during a Beyond These Gates event anticipated in November 2026
Participation in planning and rehearsal activities related to public presentation
Preferred Qualifications
Artists from a wide range of backgrounds and traditions are encouraged to apply.
Preference will be given to applicants who demonstrate:
Experience in spoken word, poetry, performance, or related artistic practices
Familiarity with poetic inquiry, arts-based research, oral history, or interpretive methodologies
Interest in memory, place, justice, public humanities, community storytelling, or social history
Experience working with sensitive, complex, or emotionally layered subject matter
Connections to Indianapolis and/or communities impacted by incarceration, reentry, criminal legal systems, or community healing efforts
Ability to engage multiple perspectives with curiosity, care, and humility
Compensation
A project stipend will be provided. Compensation details will be shared with finalists and finalized with the selected artist prior to the start of the residency.
Submission Process
Click here to open the application.
Applicants will be asked to provide:
Contact Information
Name
Email address
Phone number
Website and/or social media links (optional)
Narrative Responses
Why are you interested in this residency and the Beyond These Gates project?
How does your artistic practice engage memory, place, community, justice, or storytelling?
Describe your approach to interpretation, inquiry, and meaning-making.
What interests you about working with interviews, oral histories, and historical materials?
Artistic Work Samples
Applicants may submit:
Up to three written poems
Up to three spoken-word recordings
A combination of written and recorded work
Resume, CV, or Artist Biography
Applicants should provide a current resume, CV, or artist biography.
Selection Criteria
Applications will be reviewed based on:
Strength and originality of artistic practice
Demonstrated capacity for inquiry and interpretation
Experience engaging complex or sensitive subject matter
Alignment with project themes and goals
Ability to work collaboratively
Quality of submitted work samples
Timeline
RFQ Release:June 15, 2026
Application Deadline: July 10, 2026
Finalist Interviews:Week of July 13
Artist Selection: July 17. 2026
Residency Begins: August 3, 2026
Public Performance: November 2026
About Beyond These Gates
Beyond These Gates explores the layered histories, memories, relationships, and futures connected to the former Indiana Women's Prison. Through oral history, storytelling, public humanities, and community engagement, the project seeks to create space for remembrance, reflection, dialogue, and imagination regarding one of Indianapolis's most significant and contested places.