Live Mural Painting Kaila Austin

As the United States continues to face its history of enslavement, oppression, and exclusion of Black Americans in museums and other arenas of power and recognition, “Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is impactful and unique as it explores both history and the potential for our future together. The exhibit which opens October 6, 6-10pm at Tube Factory artspace is part of an ongoing partnership between artist Kaila Austin, the Norwood community on the southeast side of Indianapolis, and the family of Indiana’s Harlem Renaissance painter, John Wesley Hardrick (1891-1968). Austin will first exhibit the first stages of the mural at Re:Public, October 1, 11am-4pm & October 2, 12-2pm then again 3-6pm.

Over the last three years, Austin worked in Indianapolis with descendants of African-American Civil War veterans — known as the United States Colored Troops — to recover and record their family histories as their communities shift due to gentrification. For this project, Austin is working most closely with people from Norwood, a neighborhood less than a mile from her childhood home.

In February of 2021, Austin learned that the new city morgue would be built on the Hardrick homesite in Norwood, all while the neighborhood celebrated its 150th anniversary. Due to community activism from the descendants, the City canceled morgue construction. Since then, Austin and the community have worked together to reimagine the Hardrick homesite. The mural featured in this exhibit is part of that reimagining. “This entire project is work that’s transient and malleable. It changes as the research becomes more clear or muddy,” Austin, who remains a resident of the near southside as part of Big Car Collaborative’s long-term artist residency program.

This mural — recreated by Austin with the support of Hardrick’s family — was originally painted at Crispus Attucks High School in 1934 as part of the Works Progress Administration program. Hardrick was the only African American artist selected in the state. The mural depicted four foundry workers toiling in the heat, reflecting Hardrick’s lived experience working at a foundry in Norwood. However, the principal at Crispus Attucks wanted Black children to aspire to work in professions outside of manual labor, professions that historically excluded Black Americans. For this reason, the school put the mural in the basement, never to be seen again.

Austin reimagined what the mural looked like by working with the Hardrick family and descendants in Norwood. They explored his diaries and sketchbooks and looked at Hardrick’s mentors and peers — and the community that raised him. The exhibit gives us a chance to step into Hardrick’s world and see how he made the piece from start to finish. Even the title was lost. So Austin and the family are renaming the mural.

“Process as Practice: Reimagining the Lost Hardrick Mural” is a multi-generational approach to public art. It creates context through community engagement that gives Hardrick’s descendants agency in reimagining the life of an artwork that deserves preservation and attention due to its relevance and meaning for all of us.

About the Artist: Kaila Austin is an artist and public historian from Indianapolis. She attended Indiana University, triple majoring in Art History, African American Studies, and Painting. Since 2019, she has run her own historic consulting organization, Rogue Preservation Services. For the last two years, she has been working with six Reconstruction-era African American neighborhoods to record, preserve and uplift the stories of the US Colored Troops on the Southeast side of Indianapolis. The public arts plays a major role in telling these stories and reimagining our city through a Black lens. Austin is an Artist in Residence in Big Car Collaborative’s long-term residency program on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

This exhibit is made possible by The Ruth Foundation for the Arts, The Efroymson Family Fund, The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Fund and Institute of Museum and Library Services.