A Conversation Between the Past and Present: Joel Karabo Elliott in the Polk Stables Building
Joel Elliott is an Indianapolis native and a world musician. Since growing up here, he has left the USA and found home in South Africa, where he was given the name Karabo. He returns periodically to Indiana to pay respect to the land, share love and fellowship with his parents who still live here, and to give thanks for the role that this city has played in his growth as a human being. He says, "Connecting with the Harrison Center and its projects is one way I love to give back to the artistic and religious community of Indy, one of my hometowns. I also appreciate the way Harrison is dynamically involved in creative community regeneration, and I'm always keen to deepen relationship with folks who are living at the edge of what is possible in our intensifying epoch of healing and transformation.
On a chilly, drizzly day last October, Joel and I explored the Polk Building, the historic structure that sits on the corner of Lewis and 15th Street. Once an integral part of the surrounding neighborhood and the city of Indianapolis, the structure built in the 1890s is now the only remaining building of the Polk Sanitary Milk Plant. The building and its place in the neighborhood story captured the attention of the Harrison Center and have inspired many artists and projects. It has become an important part of the continuing conversation between the local history and culture and a neighborhood undergoing development and change.
The music residency and the resulting video of the live session recorded within the Polk building are a continuation of that conversation. In addition to footage of the building, with Joel Elliot and Chris Weller performing, the video also features work by artist in residence Abi Ogle. There are milk bottles painted on the filled-in windows and large scale portraits of the Greatriarchs, hanging on the building across the street. The song “Fly Outta The Cage,” with references to the poetic style and imagery of Gospel songs, brings the old and new together in one breath, just as the presence of life and music infuse the abandoned building with light.
Joel discusses his residency and how he sees his role in the cultural conversation:
“Joanna asked me to consider the Polk Milk building as a muse during my recent residency with Harrison, and it proved worthwhile and inspiring for music. To me, the Polk building represents a kind of ghost. It's an architectural and cultural ghost that spooks me into singing a song of redemption and remembrance. That's why the song 'Fly Outta The Cage' came up when I first walked up the collapsing ladder and into the dank dark second floor of Polk on an unseasonably frigid autumn day. Polk and ignored structures like it across the world still hold and emit energy from a time that we all remember, a time of more intentional living, of communal interdependence, of respect and kindness. Polk and the milk also represent a mirror. When we encounter these spaces, we are faced with a mirror to our way of life and our psycho-social assumptions.
These buildings say, 'Hey, look at how you and your post-modern society is living! Take a good long look! What do you feel about how things have unfolded? Do you have time to feel? Do you still know where your milk comes from, like, which cow and which hands have milked it? Have you lost touch with the animals and plants upon which your life depends? Why do you struggle in self-doubt and loneliness when there are so many loving people and trees around you? Or, are there loving people and trees around you?' and so on and so forth.
Architecture speaks volumes and even sends vibrations into our cells. The reigning society has allowed so many cages to be built, and these cages are making some of us numb. Now it's time we fly out of these cages into the open country of liberty, the land of participation in our realignment to divine pattern and joy. Give thanks and praise always."
"Fly Outta The Cage" composed, performed and produced by Joel Karabo Elliott with Chris Weller on bass.
Macy Lethco - Co-production, Nic Luc - Filmographer
Fly Away Home (Rastaman Chant) was also recorded during the music residency. Film by Nic Luc.