b'Introduction: A Mobile Cultural Environment Figure 1: Students complete the finishing touches of an art car by paintingCommunities come in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, locations, and purposes. Some communities defy a bright red cherry. (photo credit Lindsay Ripley) the idea that they must be sequestered to a permanent location; the art car community is constantly on the move. Like community, art car is a term that challenges any attempt at formal definition. Art cars can be defined as many things: folk art, outsider art, fine art, statement art, or not art at all and the artists who make art cars are as varied and diversified as their mobile medium. What brings the concept of art cars together as a community is the collective of people who have become provocative participants in creating spectacle by transforming automobiles into something completely unexpected.Visual art activities and curriculum that promote community engagement extend beyond an art project and focus on viewing art production as a vessel through which students positively influence their communities (Dewhurst, 2010). Collaborative community-based projects connect students to the practice of critical reflection and promote questioning as the basis for art production by translating an idea into a communicative work of art and sharing that idea with the public. Theresa March (1998) discusses approaches to community-based art education: taking from community and learning about community, or looking outward, and acting upon community, or looking inward. Art cars are mobile sculptures that communicate an idea to the viewer in a very public way. The creation of a collaborative student art car, along with the participation in art car events, such as the Houston Art Car Parade, integrates Marchs approaches into a collaborative community-based project. As parade attendees and art car viewers, students take from and learn from the art car community, looking outward at an existing community for inspiration. While students who create art cars and participate in the Art Car Parade become contributing members of the art car community and their own school art car community, looking inward and collaborating with others to develop identity. As art car artists, students inspire others to engage with the TRENDS // PAGE 26PAGE 27 // TRENDS'