Jack Hartigan came home to Indiana from Florida this spring with a feeling that people here had become politically and socially disenfranchised. In January while in Broward County, a political hotbed of the 2000 presidential election, he witnessed voter registration efforts where people would state, “I don’t vote.” “Considering everything that happened down there,” Hartigan said, “I think people feel less empowered.”

Americana, an exhibit opening this Friday, touches on issues of empowerment, hate speech, separation of church and state, and other political and social issues. Hartigan, the show’s curator, said, “I definitely wanted to do something more politically active and try to get the sun out.” Hartigan has brought together four other artists for the show, including Angela Edwards, Elizabeth Krajeck, Adam Noel and Linda Adele Goodine, who owns the studio. Goodine will present work from her Creative Renewal Fellowship awarded in 2003.

Krajeck, who calls her work “Post Democracy Poetry,” was asked by Hartigan to share her “Paint Chip Poems” for the exhibit. “I felt it fit in so well with the context of the show that I asked her to do something similar,” Hartigan said. Also included in the show will be two of her other works, “Shame Advisory System” and “Sin Advisory System.” These are poems in the format of the Department of Homeland Security’s Terror Alert System.

According to Hartigan, the title Americana was intended to be satirical. “I’ve always been engaged in the social ethic of art,” he said. “I want people to come and really think about the content of this exhibit.” He and the other artists “want to use art as power to exist in America.”

Americana opens this Friday, Sept. 10 from 5-9 p.m. at 805 S. Meridian St., on the southeast corner of Meridian and McCarty streets. Regular gallery hours for the show will be Saturdays, 12-5 p.m. Contact Jack Hartigan at 317-955-8601 for additional viewing appointments and information.