The House Life Project (HLP) was a community-based art initiative embedded in the St. Clair Place neighborhood on Indianapolis’s Near Eastside. It was founded by lead artist Meredith Brickell in 2015. Over the course of 4 years, more than 80 community members shaped the HLP by developing programs, facilitating discussion groups, and organizing creative activities. Even more people contributed by participating in HLP events.
From 2015 through 2017 the HLP reimagined abandoned houses as neighborhood assets through artistic inquiry and community collaboration. Instead of renovating or rebuilding, the HLP embraced the existing structure and aesthetics of its project sites. In 2018 the group transitioned into a reflective phase dedicated to synthesizing and sharing what it learned from three years of site-specific activity. In all of its work, the HLP fostered relationships through participatory art, challenged notions of what can be a creative space and who can be an artist, and asked tough questions about unequal neighborhood change.
I joined the HLP as curator in 2017 to support the People + Property series – an exploration of race, ethnicity, and housing inequity. In addition to cultivating new art projects, I co-edited a publication inspired by People + Property, and I organized exhibitions of the HLP’s work – all in partnership with HLP community members.
When the HLP ended its regular activities in the neighborhood, I collaborated with HLP community members and students in the IUPUI Museum Studies Program to create an exhibition to document and share the group’s work. Read more about We’re Open, Come In: The House Life Project here.