Welcome the Year of the Fire Horse with the Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi) and the Indianapolis Chinese Performing Arts (ICPAI) at our annual Lunar New Year celebration! Join us on February 21 at the CAMi campus in Garfield Park for an evening of culture, creativity, and community fun for all ages.

Enjoy vibrant traditional dance performances by ICPAI and take part in hands-on activities throughout the night, including fireworks, paper cutting, lantern decorating, fan painting, and bracelet making. Food will be available for purchase from the Hachi Machi Asian food truck.

Tickets are $14.64 apiece and can be purchased via Eventbrite.

Schedule of Events:

• Activities: 6 – 9:30 p.m.

• ICPAI Performances: 7 – 8 p.m.

• Fireworks: 9 p.m.

About Lunar New Year:

Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations of the year among East and Southeast Asian cultures, including Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean communities. Unlike the single-day Gregorian New Year, this holiday is traditionally celebrated over multiple days.

In 2026, Lunar New Year begins on February 17. Known as the Spring Festival (Chūnjié) in China, Seollal in Korea, and Tết in Vietnam, the holiday is tied to the lunar calendar. It originated as a time for feasting and honoring deities and ancestors.

Image: Julie Xiao, Fire Horse (2025)

Are you an artist, designer, or creative entrepreneur looking for a community where you can make, share, and grow your work? The Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi) is now accepting applications for studio and storefront spaces in our new building opening May 2026 on Indianapolis’s near south side.

To help prospective applicants learn more, we’re hosting an open house where you can tour the spaces, ask questions, and explore what it means to be part of the CAMi campus.

Open House Details:

Saturday, Jan. 24
1–3 p.m.
Starting location: Tube building (1125 Cruft St., Indianapolis, IN 46203)

Staff will be available to provide direction, share information about available spaces, and answer questions about the application and selection process.

If you love sketching and are looking for community, hang out and draw with Big Car long-term artist-in-residence, India Hines. Open to all levels and artists of any kind! Beginners are welcome. Just drop by and draw 🙂

Tube Building | Doors at 6:30 pm, Reading at 7 pm

Featured Poet: Kristine Esser Slentz

Open mic prompt: Write a poem on how technology affects a close relationship. 

Read a poem or short piece that is 317 words maximum, and challenge yourself to share new work!

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About the Featured Poet:

Kristine Esser Slentz is a queer writer of Maltese descent, raised in the Chicagoland area. A cult escapee and GED holder, she is the author of EXHIBIT: an amended woman, depose (FlowerSong Press, 2021, 2024) and the forthcoming collection face-to-faces (ThirtyWest Publishing House, 2026). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Saturday Evening Post, TriQuarterly, Five Points, TEDx, and elsewhere. Kristine is the co-founder, organizer, and host of Adverse Abstraction, a monthly experimental artist series in New York City’s East Village. She also produces and performs in Verse & Vision, a stage production currently in a micro-residency at NYC’s Dada and headed for an upcoming run at the IndyFringe Festival. Follow her art on Substack at Carnations & Car Crashes.

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NIGHTJAR creates an inclusive space for all by bringing together spoken-word performers and page-based poets writing in narrative, lyric, and experimental forms. Every third Wednesday (this month is an exception, as it’s on the second Wednesday), C.S. Carrier and Michelle Niemann host a reading and invite audience members to share their own poetic responses.