The annual Spirit&Place festival is streamlined from 16 days to 10 this year, but it would be a mistake to refer to the collaborative community project as small.

Forty events are scheduled under a thematic heading of “Inspiring Places.”

Neighborhoods, churches, farmers markets, parks, bodies of water and the Internet will be explored and celebrated during Spirit&Place, which opens today and continues through Nov. 15.

Peace and beauty aren’t necessarily factors for being moved, however.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Bill Foley — a first-time festival participant — worked extensively in the war-torn Middle East from 1978 to 1990.

He says inspirational people can be found in any setting.

“When I see kids in places where you wouldn’t let your dog live, they just transcend their environment,” he said. “They’re able to make a moment of joy. They can live their lives without having this weight of the world appear in their faces.”

Foley, an Indianapolis native who teaches fine arts at Marian University, will present the lecture “An Eye to the World: Photography as Transformation” on Sunday at Second Presbyterian Church, 7700 N. Meridian St.

Established by IUPUI’s Polis Center in 1996, Spirit&Place is a communitywide exercise in promoting positive change.

For the first time, three “signature series” events will launch the festival. One of the three, a “Spirited Chase” to six undisclosed sites in Indianapolis, already is booked to capacity.

Admission is free to tonight’s “Ordinary Place to Sacred Space” program at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, and tickets are available for “Caddy! Caddy! Caddy!” — an interpretative dance production scheduled for Saturday at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

If the scope of events overwhelms a would-be Spirit&Place attendee, past participant Rebecca Martin advises a close look at the listings.

“It’s a wide range of groups that reach out to people who might be interested in one thing, but not necessarily another,” she said. “You’ll find your interest.”

Martin is president of the Indiana American Indian Theatre Company, a group that debuted at the 2000 edition of Spirit&Place.

Next month, Martin will direct 18 actors in “Calico Apron,” a play based on the 19th-century Cherokee “Trail of Tears” relocation, at the Eiteljorg Museum.

She credits Spirit&Place for providing a venue for the Indiana American Indian Theatre Company’s first production, “Shadow Speakers of Night Sky Stories.”

“We were always talking about doing a production (before 2000), but we never did,” Martin said.