FAQs

What is Spirit & Place?
Spirit & Place is Indiana’s largest civic festival. It promotes civic engagement, respect for diversity, thoughtful reflection, public imagination, and enduring change through creative collaborations between arts, faith-based, and civic institutions. The festival features 10 days of events for all ages and interests--dialogues, exhibits, performances, workshop services, tours, and more--creating a citywide celebration and conversation around the annual theme.

When is Spirit & Place?
The Spirit & Place festival events will be held from November 5–14, 2010. The Signature Series will be held the opening Friday and Saturday, November 5 and 6, and the annual Public Conversation will be held Saturday, November 13.

How does Spirit & Place work?
Spirit & Place represents a collaboration of congregations, cultural institutions, universities and colleges, schools, civic groups, museums, etc. All partner organizations host or co-sponsor an event that invites audiences to interpret and engage with the theme. Events take place at venues around Central Indiana.

What is the mission and vision for Spirit & Place?
Spirit & Place serves as a catalyst for civic engagement and enduring change through creative collaborations among the arts, humanities, and religion. It honors the places we call home and uses the traditions and creative capacities of individuals and organizations to help all citizens develop richer lives in community with each other. Read our Belief Statements.

What about the theme?
The 2010 theme is Food for Thought. Food is essential to all life. It influences our family, health, and faith. It shapes our culture, economy, and landscape. It is a symbol of community and devotion. It can also be an instrument of celebration or segregation. We share it, and we fight over it. Food permeates every aspect of the human community. 

The festival will explore wide ranging questions, including:  What are the social, cultural, and religious contexts of food? What are the economic, environmental, scientific, political, ethical, and nutritional impacts of local and/or global food production and distribution? How do literary works, films, visual art, music, dance, theatre and other art forms illuminate the role of food in our individual and communal life?  What do history, anthropology, archaeology, and folklore tell us about food ways and cultural identities?

What is the Public Conversation?
The Public Conversation is the closing, marquee event for the festival. Available to the public free of charge, this moderated dialogue, held annually since 1996, explores the annual theme through a spontaneous, on-stage exchange among nationally known figures. Read about our past conversationalists.

Who manages Spirit & Place?
The Polis Center, and independent unit of the IU School of Liberal Arts/IUPUI at IUPUI, manages Spirit & Place on behalf of the community with the guidance of an Advisory Board and many community leaders.

How and when did Spirit & Place begin?
The Spirit & Place Festival grew out of a nationally prominent research project (the Polis Center's Project on Religion and Urban Culture) that examined the relationship between religion and community in Indianapolis. The notion of place shaping identity emerged when Indiana natives Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Wakefield, along with John Updike, were invited to speak at Clowes Memorial Hall in 1996 through a collaboration with Butler University. Engaged in a "public conversation” rather than a keynote speech, this lively presentation was augmented with ten other events designed to allow residents of Central Indiana to explore questions of community and identity. Spirit & Place has been an annual event since 1996.

How is the festival funded?
The 2010 festival is generously underwritten by our major financial partners Lilly Endowment Inc.; Wishard Health Service; Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Inc.; The Indianapolis Foundation, an affiliate of the Central Indiana Community Foundation; Eli Lilly and Company, Inc.; IUPUI/IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI; University of Indianapolis; and dozens of community partners including arts, civic, educational, and religious organizations as well as foundations, corporations, and individuals. See complete donor list.

Who are the festival partners?
Over 100 arts, religious, and civic institutions have collaborated to present 40 events during the 2009 festival.

What if my organization is interested in being a festival partner or donor?
Spirit & Place welcomes organizational partners—congregations, arts groups, schools, and civic groups—who are willing to collaborate, produce programs, or make a contribution to the festival. Learn more...

What are the future Spirit & Place dates and themes?
2010 Theme: The Body (dates to be announced).

Where can I get more information about the Festival?
For more information, or to be added to the Spirit & Place mailing list, go to our Contact page, call 317-278-3623, or email: festival@iupui.edu.