Jim Walker is CEO of Big Car Collaborative, an Indianapolis-based socially engaged art nonprofit he helped found in 2004. Walker is lead artist for Big Car’s Spark Placemaking work that brings engagement-based public programming and people-focused design to communities across Indiana and beyond. He also leads the organization’s work to utilize cultural strategies to support the equitable and inclusive revitalization of a long-overlooked neighborhood just south of downtown Indianapolis where he lives with his family. Big Car’s work here, alongside many partners, includes bringing new life to 15 formerly vacant buildings (residential, commercial, and industrial) on one block. Walker — who received his MFA from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C. — has also worked as a media producer, journalist, and designer. And he currently teaches in the University of Indianapolis Social Practice Art and Placemaking graduate program. For fun, he enjoys spinning records as a DJ on Big Car’s art and community FM broadcast radio station, walking and exploring cities and the great outdoors, reading books and newspapers, and visiting as much of the world as he can.