Perception (What's Behind the Door?) Project / Making the Invisible Visible
2024-25: Roots Indianapolis a resident led nonprofit community development organization that utilizes the principles of asset-based community development to design cultural and sacred spaces; it exists to promote social, economic, and spiritual wellbeing, and to cultivate vitality in the community of the Riverside (Indianapolis) neighborhood. This grant is an investment in building out a space that will become a community flex space in a 10,000 square ft mixed use facility purchased by Roots International. The space will be used for art exhibitions, community gatherings and sacred celebrations. The community will be able to access the space for worship, birthday parties and various cultural events.
There is energy and joy and imagination in our neighborhood for this place. People are spending time not only “dreaming” about what will happen there, but actively working to bring it to life. We have trusted our neighbors and they have rewarded us with their practical and hope-filled talents and time.
2021-24: De’Amon Harges’ canvas is city blocks strewn together, to which he applies his ‘genius for community.’ He listens for and then paints the stories he hears from and sees in his neighbors. He shares the words of wise elders in the neighborhood, printed in extra-large print and on the side of abandoned buildings, reminding people of the wisdom held in that place. Doors on the front of people’s homes tell the stories they have chosen to tell, reminding people of the absolute abundance of life in each household. “Black Wall Street Door,” featured in this exhibition, is one of those doors, painted by neighbor Jamahl Crouch. Chimes formed into the shapes of the gifts of people who live in that house decorate the yard. The next house has a front yard full of flowers, and the next house has a backyard growing over a hundred pounds of peanuts. A bicycle shop, begun at his encouragement, asks young people riding by if they want to fix the bicycles themselves (and even sell some). In the next yard, a neighbor hosts a party with homemade wine. Every avenue offers a festival with plates of food from neighborhood cooks. Photos of parents teaching their children art, math, music, and history adorn the outdoor walls of the building facing the school building in their neighborhood. Harges’ art is not that he did these things. All he did was make the invisible, visible.
De'Amon is a faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute, community organizer, creator of the Learning Tree, chairperson of the Grassroots Grantmakers Association Board, and featured in “The Antidote: On Kindness in America.” Harges is a layperson at Broadway United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana. His role is to listen and discover the gifts, passions, and dreams of citizens in his community, and to find ways to utilize them to build community, economy, and mutual “delight.”
A joint project of the Ministry in the City HUB and Walls-Ortiz Gallery at City Seminary, the Creative Community Care Virtual Residency brought together socially-engaged Christian creatives from New York City, Indianapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, and Corsicana (Tx) for peer mentor support, learning, and sharing. In 2021, residents developed local projects in their respective cities, exploring creative practices of care in the context of community. Projects engaged the concerns and questions of the pandemic period (mutual aid, care re-imagined for social distance, etc.) at the intersection of the arts, learning, faith, and the city. In 2022, the resident pairs offered public online workshops. Starting in 2024, Creative Community Care, a traveling group exhibition of the artwork will be on display with related programming in cities across North America. In 2024, the exhibition has been on view in Santa Ana, CA (March 1-5), Houston, TX (August 7-23), and will be in St. Paul, MN (November 1 - December 15). In 2025, it will go to Indianapolis, IN (March - April), Charlotte, NC (May-June), and possibly Boston, MA (November). For 2026, we anticipate a stop in Toronto, ON (Canada) before a final show in New York City.
Congregational and Community grants provide support for urban pastors, churches, faith-based community organizations, and theological institutions to share resources, ideas, and practices for life-giving ministry in cities across North America. Typically, we invite those who have not previously had access to resources or grant funding.
