From the builders of some of America’s earliest railroads and farms to Civil Rights pioneers to digital technology entrepreneurs, Indian Americans have long been an inextricable part of American life. “Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation” explores the Indian American experience and the community’s vital political, professional, and cultural contributions to American life and history. The exhibition moves past pop-culture stereotypes of Indian Americans to explore the heritage, daily experience, and diverse contributions of Indian immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Weaving together stories of individual achievement and collective struggle, “Beyond Bollywood” uses photography, narrative, multimedia, and interactive stations to tell a uniquely American story, while conveying the texture, vibrancy, and vitality of Indian American communities.

“Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation” was created by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The Mathers Museum’s presentation of the exhibit has been generously funded by Indiana University alumnus Robert N. Johnson, the Madhusudan and Kiran C. Dhar India Studies Program, the Asian American Studies Program, and the Department of American Studies. Gallery is open 9am-4:30 pm Tues-Fri and 1pm-4:30pm Sat/Sun.

Free visitor parking is available by the Indiana Avenue lobby entrance. Metered parking is available at the McCalla School parking lot on the corner of Ninth Street and Indiana Avenue. The parking lot also has spaces designated for Indiana University C and ST permits. During the weekends free parking is available on the surrounding streets.An access ramp is located at the Fess Avenue entrance, on the corner of Ninth Street and Fess Avenue. Reserved parking spaces are available on Ninth Street, between Fess Avenue and Indiana Avenue. If you have a disability and need assistance, special arrangements can be made to accommodate most needs. Please call 812-855-6873.

For the past 40 years, Albert Nelson has made annual pilgrimages to Indiana Limestone Country to collect stone with which to work. During this time, he has fallen in love with the people, the material, and the process of stone carving.

This show is a collection of his most recent works. As with all his art, the subject centers around family, relationships, and the importance of faith, hope, and love in our daily lives.

Exhibit runs through 2/26/16.

2015 National Teacher of the Year, Shanna Peeples, will speak at the IU School of Education Auditorium. Presented by the INSPIRE Living-Learning Center and the Office of Recruitment for Underrepresented Students. Introduction by Kathy Nimmer, Indiana Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year Finalist.

Seema Sohi, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, explores the early decades of the 20th century, when Indian migrants across North America organized a broad, innovative, and heterogeneous anticolonial movement that, according to British authorities, came dangerously close to toppling the British Raj during the First World War. Though their anticolonial politics began as a two-pronged effort to both contest anti-Indian racism in North America and challenge British colonialism at home, they ultimately charted radical visions of freedom that looked beyond the narrow horizon of western liberal democracies for emancipatory possibilities and, in the process, exposed the racialized assumptions and hollow rhetoric of U.S. and British liberalism and modernity. These forms of anticolonial politics provoked a global inter-imperial collaboration between U.S. and British officials to repress anticolonial revolt, in part, through the exclusion and repression of Indians in North America. Indian exclusion, therefore, must be understood not only as part of the broader historical narrative of anti-Asian immigration bans in the 19th and 20th centuries, but also as part of a history of radical repression. This presentation tracks U.S. and British surveillance and repression of Indian anticolonialists who were maligned as both racially and politically objectionable and whose political activism, Sohi argues, contributed to the rise of the American security state. Seema Sohi completed her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in U.S. history, with a focus on Asian American history. Her work examines the radical anticolonial politics of South Asian intellectuals and migrant workers based in North America during the early twentieth century as well as the inter-imperial efforts of the U.S. and British states to repress them. A history of radicalism and antiradicalism, this project also looks at the racial formations of South Asians through the lens of antiradicalism during the early years of South Asian migration to the United States. She teaches various courses in the Ethnic Studies Department including the Introduction to Asian American Studies, Asian/Pacific American Communities, Race and Citizenship, and South Asian American History. The lecture will be presented in conjunction with the exhibit Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation, created by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The Mathers Museum’s presentation of the exhibit and related programming has been generously funded by Indiana University alumnus Robert N. Johnson, the Madhusudan and Kiran C. Dhar India Studies Program, the Asian American Studies Program, and the Department of American Studies. The event will be free and open to the public.

Free visitor parking is available by the Indiana Avenue lobby entrance. Metered parking is available at the McCalla School parking lot on the corner of Ninth Street and Indiana Avenue. The parking lot also has spaces designated for Indiana University C and ST permits. During the weekends free parking is available on the surrounding streets. An access ramp is located at the Fess Avenue entrance, on the corner of Ninth Street and Fess Avenue. Reserved parking spaces are available on Ninth Street, between Fess Avenue and Indiana Avenue. If you have a disability and need assistance, special arrangements can be made to accommodate most needs. Please call 812-855-6873.

Fiddle & Banjo music by the Deckard Boy w/ mom & pop.

For Immediate Release:
Fresh + Flash + Photographic

IUCA+D is pleased to announce an exhibition of contemporary photography. Co-curated by Jennifer Riley and Adam Reynolds, the exhibition will feature work by four emerging artists who share an interest in revisiting traditional themes and approaches to photography. The exhibition will open with a reception for the artists on Friday, February 19th, 2016, from 6-8pm.

Terri Bright, Adam Reynolds, Ivette Spradlin, and Michael Tittel are photographers who met in 2015 at Flash Powder Projects Retreat, an artist workshop residency, where they recognized a shared interest in the legacy of photography.

With the invention of photography, many thought that painting would simply come to an end and with the proliferation of portable, inexpensive, digital picture taking capabilities, pervasive thinking followed that photography and the photographer would also become obsolete. We all know that painting with a capital “P” did not die. Once liberated from the task of certain roles, in particular that of providing reports, likenesses (portraits) and scenes of historical record, painting became ever more materially and conceptually defined, experimental and expressive. Photography has followed a similar course, yet the line between fine art photography and consumer photography still poses challenges to the viewer and maker alike. What aspects of traditional photography are challenged when a photograph can be made by anyone with a cell phone? My belief is that very little is lost, much is gained. For one, most people use photo tools in place of note taking and sometimes even in replacement of experience itself, and a majority of these images are viewed only on the tiny cell phone screen. To discover the large scale, full color, or black and white photographs in this exhibition, one is immediately met with works that have been carefully orchestrated, planned, composed, conceived of and – are in conversation with a history of image making that reaches back 100 years. Taking pictures and making photographic art are like twins separated at birth and raised in contrasting environments. The four bodies of work in this exhibition present the genres of still life, portraiture, documentary and street photography, all thoughtfully explored and reimagined.

Terri Bright – The Encountered Still Life

Terri Bright reprises early modernist designs and principals in work that captures ordinary objects set in natural and built environments. Bold color and strong light patterns capture and define forms that invite the viewer to pare away filters of cognitive reality and to engage the work with the intuitive mind.

Adam Reynolds – The Documentary Approach Confronted

Drawing upon the sometimes opposing modes of objective documentation, personal narrative and aspects of straightforward journalism, Reynolds’ images are results from his hybrid approach to new work in the field of documentary journalism. Addressing the topic of the Middle East conflict in work that shows the hidden world of the regional conflicts rather than front line sensational images, Reynolds takes the viewer to the edge, around and behind the scenes -so to speak- to expose plain facts and truth with a certain neutrality of view. He reveals the simultaneously plain and compelling aspects of the conditions that impact and influence daily life of the people living in the region.

Ivette Spradlin – The Reinvented Portrait

Some argue that ‘likeness’ in Western art dates back to the Etruscans, yet we all know that the Egyptians were quite specific when painting portraits on the head tablets of their King’s mummies. Picasso famously presented abstracted views of his sitters simultaneously showing two or three sides of the figure in front of him. Today with the “the selfie,” portraiture has perhaps reached a new level, but what is it that constitutes a likeness of someone? Spradlin’s refreshing take on figurative work turns traditional portraiture on its head in work that invites the viewer to look carefully and closely to cull information in order to imagine and speculate what the face of the viewer may be.

Michael Tittel – The Street as Personal Narrative

Tittel’s richly narrative works hinge upon the decisive moment like that of street photography. The work is evidence of strong vision in which deliberation, planning and searching for content-rich opportunities meets the delightful and surprising instant. Here, the artist has captured precise moments that evoke a sense of individual loneliness and displacement despite one’s location amid groups of people in very public settings.

On Friday, February 19th, beginning at 6:00p.m, The Venue will host a reception featuring the hand crafted Jewelry of Amy Greey and the Raku Ceramics of Dr. Al Scovern.

Amy Greely is one of the most creative and revered metal- smith jewelry makers in the Midwest. She began her art education at the Herron School of Art. Further studies at Indiana University provided her knowledge and experience in traditional metalsmithing techniques. Amy has been juried into the Indiana Artisan Group.

In Amy’s hands, sterling silver is formed, textured and enhanced with an array of patina choices offering a rich and varied palette. Further additions of gold/silver bi-metal add another layer of contrasts resulting in a fresh approach to traditional processes. Amy will be present and showing her newest creations, some of which are specifically appropriate for Valentine’s Day gifts.

Dr. Al Scovern has mastered a western version of the traditional Japanese ceramic techniques of Raku. Dr. Scovern has also traveled the American Southwest and studied the techniques of Indian pottery makers. That influence too can

be seen in many of his creations. All of his ceramics are stunningly beautiful. These are your family’s heirlooms of tomorrow.

Refreshments will be served at The Venue. You can visit the following link for free parking options near The Venue: http://bloomington.in.gov/parksmart.

This show will run at The Venue until March 3rd.

Faculty String Quartet in Residence

Pacifica Quartet
Simin Ganatra, violin
Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin
Masumi Per Rostad, viola
Brandon Vamos, cello

Hoosier Darling has ALWAYS loved the Porthole Inn, but now that Travers Marks and the gang own it the ladies in Hoosier Darling are truly smitten with the place. The Porthole Inn, known by locals for the BEST catfish and hush puppies to be found, now offers the BEST pizza (new owners used to own Max’s Place – known for their pizza), FULL bar, good people, off the beaten track out on Lake Lemon – just FUN. Tonight – Hoosier Darling will be the entertainment on board for the loyal customers of the Porthole Inn – and we look forward to bringing some of our peeps to join the crowd! Music kicks off at 8 p.m.

Fun-loving Honky-tonk.