"This festival is one of the best parts of living in Indianapolis."
2003 Spirit & Place attendee

Spirit & Place Final Report 2003
Executive Summary

Speaking out, challenging assumptions, considering our individual and collective pasts: citizens and organizations engaged in active civic dialogue in response to Remembering & Reconciling, the theme of the eighth annual Spirit & Place Festival, November 8-19, 2003. The festival featured 100 events, and reached 35, 000 citizens through live and broadcast events.

The Remembering & Reconciling theme engendered a variety of challenging topics creatively presented in dialogues, performances, lectures, panel discussions, exhibits and much more. The theme highlighted central Indiana's spiritual, civic, and artistic traditions and invited audiences to remember the past, reflect on the future, consider alternative perspectives, reconcile issues and events, and at times challenge thinking about both the past and the future.

The 2003 Spirit & Place Festival included programs that:

• Demonstrated how faith helps us recover from trauma
• Highlighted the Sikhs and Tibetan Buddhists common desire for forgiveness and an embrace of our common humanity
• Showed participants that the history of a place isn't just the record of the people who settled there-it's also the continuing story of life in that place
• Discussed the importance of reconciling the realities of the Holocaust and engaging Jews and Gentiles alike in countering efforts to deny its memory.
• Gave youth the opportunity to contribute to the festival dialogue
• Highlighted Indianapolis' rich cultural history through a tour
• Provided a challenging conversation about the provocative theological notion that God redeems every person regardless of their religious faith
• Discussed reconciling modern life and art with the looming historical memories that influence Native American identity
• Dialogued with a representatives of the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish faiths and covered ideas about forgiveness in each faith

Spirit & Place attendees continued to appreciate the events the festival offers:

• "Thank you for having the courage to support the opportunity to critically think and feel-this is a model for community growth."
• "I love the variety of events. Great exposure to the new, inspiring, and thought provoking."
• "Spirit and Place continues to plan annual events with uplifting and encouraging themes that open our minds and hearts to things that are common to all in spite of our diversity."

Spirit & Place was made possible by its partnering institutions-over 100 organizations representing the cultural, educational, and faith-based communities-as well as financial support from the Lilly Endowment Inc. and many individual donors.
To receive a full report on Spirit & Place 2003, covering the areas below, please e-mail us at festival@iupui.edu.

• Public Conversation
• Programs
• Partnerships
• Products & Outcomes
• Promotional Efforts
• Fundraising & Development
• Financial Statement