PreEnactIndy, a cross between a street fair, tactical urbanism, and historical re-enactment, reimagines a stretch of 16th Avenue in Indianapolis. | Susan Peters

A cross between a street fair, tactical urbanism, and historical re-enactment, PreEnactIndy uses the past to see a better future Three years ago, Joanna Taft, executive director of the Harrison Center for the Arts, an Indianapolis institution that promotes the visual arts, was thinking about the different ways her organization was impacting the surrounding neighborhood, a majority black area in the near-north part of the city known as Monon 16.
How could the organization do a better job of not just being part of the neighborhood, but helping the neighborhood define itself, of making sure art played a role in revitalizing the area for everyone, instead of being a precursor to the standard gentrification narrative" The answer, as Taft and Harrison Center staff found, was not just looking at how the neighborhood was and is, but helping to envision what it could become. The concept, PreEnactIndy, is a cross between a street fair, tactical urbanism, and historical re-enactment. Every year during a Saturday in October, a few blocks in the neighborhood, 16th Street from the Monon Trail to Dr. Andrew J. Brown Avenue, get reimagined as their future selves, a visualization exercise that aids in community planning and sense of unity. The third edition of PreEnactIndy just took place last Saturday, drawing over 3,...