With redevelopment under way at Clay Terrace, General Manager Jennifer Jones and her team have sought ways to beautify the shopping center during the process.
Clay Terrace, in partnership with GANGGANG, a cultural development startup, has created Art Walk, a community art installation on the sides of an empty building set to be redeveloped. Clay Terrace will have the grand opening of Art Walk, a community art installation, at 4 p.m. Aug. 18. From 5 to 6 p.m., there will be a meet and greet with the artists by the individual murals.
GANGGANG is backed in part by the Central Indiana Community Foundation. Clay Terrace worked with GANGGANG, whose mission is to develop cultural entrepreneurs with a strong focus on racial equity, to commission 11 area artists to create a series of 12 large-scale murals at the town center. Each piece will reflect the unique style of its artist and the installation.
The murals will remain up through August 2022.
Malina Simone Jeffers and Alan Bacon are the founders at GANGGANG.
“I have known of Mali (Simone Jeffers) and her work in the Indianapolis arts and culture community for years,” Jones said. “In late 2020, I read the news about the creation of GANGGANG with her partner, Alan Bacon. While developing the Art Walk concept along with my colleagues at Washington Prime Group, the partnership with GANGGANG was proposed and our connection with their organization began.”
Featured artists for the Art Walk are part of Eighteen Art Collective, a collective of 18 like-minded and civically engaged Black visual artists in and around the Indianapolis metropolitan area.
“GANGGANG is thrilled to now have a footprint in Carmel,” Simone Jeffers said. “Our work is about sparking activity in the creative economy as a means toward more equitable cities. So, this was the perfect opportunity to collaborate and do just that. Clay Terrace has been great to work with and our participating artists are excited to have their work in a new environment.”
Even though the work will eventually go away amid construction, Simone Jeffers isn’t concerned.
“The timeline is not a barrier at all,” Simone Jeffers said. “Many meaningful artworks are ephemeral in nature and go away over time. As one artist, Wavy Blayne, put it, ‘The opportunity definitely outweighs the timeline.’ It’ll provide exposure and open the table for more things like this to happen around Carmel. When passersby see it in process, they talk about how they want to see more authentic art like this in their city.”
