ARTS + CULTURE + CREATIVE + DESIGN >
Art + Action Community Lab.
Logo designed by Kelly Knaga.
concept
We are Artists, Curators, and Culture Creators.
The Arts and Action Community Lab is an artist-led collaborative founded by Lauren M. Pacheco and Kelly Knaga focusing on the areas of public arts programming, arts administration, design, placemaking, civic engagement, and education. This Gary-based creative accelerator aims to stimulate community involvement, and economic revitalization, and catalyze regional artistic and cultural connections.
About The IU Northwest School of the arts Mobile Arts + Action Laboratory
The Mobile Art + Action Community Lab (MA+AC Lab) is a family of versatile exhibit display units, designed to be deployed in indoor and outdoor public spaces for pop-up and semi-permanent exhibitions for an outreach program for the School of the Arts at Indiana University Northwest (IUN). Various exhibit units are assembled from a cohesive kit of parts that includes interchangeable architectural “hats” that provide shade and identity, and “feet” that provide stability and bench seating.
In the autumn of 2020 during the ongoing pandemic, MA+AC Lab ventured on tour throughout Northwest Indiana to create social-distanced, interactive cultural programming and pop-up exhibits in public parking lots in the cities of Gary, Hobart, Merrillville, and Hammond. During the winter and spring of 2021, the MA+AC Lab wandered indoors to activate the interiors of campus buildings at IUN, the Chesterton Art Center, the South Shore Art Center, and Southlake Mall.
In response to the unprecedented impact of COVID19, the Mobile Arts + Action Community Lab offers an innovative approach to:
- support the creative sector globally impacted by COVID19 by presenting their artworks, objects, and ideas to the public
- provide augmented teaching and learning experiences and supplemental resources that stimulate discovery and curiosity for community members, K-12 educators, and students
- recognize the power of diverse creative practices and civic discourse to transform communities and create meaningful projects.
