The "I AM INDY" campaign was a project of Visit Indy, Indianapolis' tourism bureau, with Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Inc., the entity that operates, maintains, and markets the Cultural Trail. According to Visit Indy, 62% of the 26 million people who visit Indy each year come to see family and friends. Therefore, the goal of the project was to engage residents to ask them to be humbly boastful about the city and invite family and friends to visit. We wanted Indy residents to be stronger Indy ambassadors.

Art Strategies was hired to help the partners craft a project plan where people became the "I" in Indy and shared their images and feeling about Indianapolis on social media platforms. 

Learn more about the project by clicking here.

NUVO named this the best new public art project in Indy in 2015. Read more by clicking here.

Art Strategies recommended Indianapolis Fabrications be hired as the designer and fabricator of the interactive sculptures. As project manager, Art Strategies scoped and recommended installation sites on the Cultural Trail, oversaw the initial fabrication of the sculptures, pulled all permits, and oversaw the initial installations.   

Just before the project launched, the need for a point of pride in Indy only became stronger. Indiana legislators broke open the lack of protection for LGBT Hoosiers with the controversial Religious Freedom bill (RFRA). On the heels of RFRA, the Visit Indy campaign exploded becoming a way for residents to showcase the diversity of the city and why they loved their city. Residents were not willing to be tied to the discrimination label that was being slapped on them by the rest of the country due to the RFRA controversy.

Since April, there have been more than 40,000 posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with the NDY sculptures and #LoveIndy. The partners consider the project a great success.

The project has proved so popular that the original October 15, 2015 end date was cancelled and two sculptures will remain outside at Meridian and Washington streets and outside the Indiana State House while the other sculptures rotate to indoor locations.