Indira Johnson
Visual Art
Evanston, IL
As an artist, Indira Freitas Johnson’s identity has evolved as part sculptor, cultural worker, peace activist and educator. For Johnson creating objects in the studio goes hand in hand with site-specific installation and interactive/community-engaged projects.
Influenced by an artist father, an ardent follower of Gandhi’s teachings and a social activist mother, Johnson’s vision of society is built on the premise that cultural and creative expression is a means to promote deep and lasting social change. This combination of art and activism has been a major thread of influence that is interwoven into her art and life. It has fueled her passion and commitment to make art part of everyday life, involve local voices and communities in the art process and cultivate peace as individual action.
Johnson completed her undergraduate work at the University of Mumbai (1964) and the Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art (1964). She received a grant to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received her MFA (1967). All Johnson’s formal art education is in Advertising Design and she is self-taught and self learned in sculpture. Johnson first started working with ceramic sculpture at the local Folk Universitet while her husband was studying at the University of Lund, Sweden.
In 1993, in response to ethnic violence in the world, Johnson founded Shanti Foundation for Peace, whose mission is to use the processes of art to help people understand that their individual action can make a difference in the world. Shanti Foundation has since merged with Changing Worlds and together their artists have been teaching art and nonviolence decision-making skills to children in the Chicago area public schools.
The numerous public art projects that Johnson has presented over the last three decades cover an array of social issues including the cultural dimension of domestic violence, leprosy health education, labor, the environment, gender, peace, nonviolence and literacy. They share a common theme- the need to explore ways in which art can increase awareness of the social, political and environmental conditions of our world and can motivate people to play an active role in shaping the social fabric of their community. She uses personal memories, communal histories, traditional rituals, and opposing truths as an aesthetic resource.
Johnson’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in numerous private and public collections including the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, City of Evanston, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI, Haeinsa Temple, South Korea, Chicago Transit Authority, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile AL, State of Illinois Building, Chicago and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the prestigious Illinois Governors Award for the Arts, Arts Midwest NEA and Arts International Travelling Fellowship and most recently was named the 2013 Chicagoan of the Year. Mayor’s Award for the Arts
Ten Thousand Ripples, (TTR) Johnson’s current Chicago area Public Art, Peace and Civic Engagement initiative is a collaboration with over thirty five Chicago area cultural educational and community organizations. As part of the project, one hundred emerging Buddha sculptures created by Johnson were installed throughout the city in sites chosen by ten host communities. The goal of TTR is to provide the general community with an intense and meaningful public art experience outside of traditional art venues and in doing so act as a catalyst for community conversations and interactions about peace and nonviolence. In 2014 TTR collaborated with the Chicago Park District to install three major sculpture peace circles at Jackson Park, Palmisano Park and Lake Shore Drive at Diversey.
Featured Work
