Community Arts

Our artistic goals, as stated in our original application, were defined by a focus on artists from specific cultural communities whose work is unique, thoughtful, and engaging. Artists who have remarkable talent or facility in their chosen medium and who are seriously committed to their practice will be of particular interest. Emerging or young artists whose work shows special promise and who are looking to pursue professional careers as artists will also be sought out. The Free to be Different Together program successfully met these artistic goals by showcasing a diverse and unique collection of artists over the course of the program. Based on the response from the community, it was apparent that the art experience was both provocative and valuable. For example, with the community engagement event for our first exhibit around LGBTQ issues, the promotional flyer language received push back from some leaders in our community, however this led to more dialogue and conversation around the LGBTQ issues. On another occasion, an artist featured in our second exhibition displayed work around the topic of racism. Audience members were initially offended by some of the work and yet, through conversation a deeper understanding of artistic expression around difficult topics was explored. Our main challenge was in developing community engagement events around each of the exhibits. Each exhibit was truly unique… featuring different artists and themes. One of our challenges with the events was understanding what type of event best provided access to the appropriate community. Also, at different times of year the activity in and around the building would vary. Should we do an engagement event over lunch? In the evening? Should we bring in other artists for dialogue, or focus on the artists displayed on the walls? Our process included much experimentation and trial. We varied the styles of the community engagement events, almost always with positive outcomes. We were able to determine that the most beneficial community subset to engage were the people who work in the building on a daily basis. This community is diverse and interested. When we hosted community engagement events at lunch time, with a shared meal and shared conversation with the featured artists and the project curator, we observed the most interest and participation from our community. In the future, as we extend this program, we have learned that informal gatherings for those who work in the building around the artwork with the curator and the artists would be received the best. Participants in our events expressed gratitude for day-time events that they could attend, as well they seemed eager to learn more about art and understanding how they could incorporate art into their programs. They expressed a lot of appreciation and admiration of the artists that we featured. Over the course of this program we successfully reached our intended audience and artists engaging 13 artists, about 160 audience members at engagement events, and over 40,000 people with access to the exhibition displays in the Center for Changing Lives lobby throughout the year. The exhibitions were free and open to the public during all open hours of the building, and each engagement event was also free and open to the public. We successfully reached our intended engagement of diverse, underrepresented local artists. We accomplished this by successfully carrying out all of the scheduled programming each summarized below. Exhibit 1: June 13- August 12. LGBTQ Artists -- Photography by Anna Min, Community conversation with Anna and artist Andrea Jenkins of the University of Minnesota Libraries for Transgender History project on July 26, 2017. Exhibit 2: September 27- Nov 25. Youth of Color Artists-- Photography by Denetrick Powers, Mixed media by Lynette Simpson and drawings by Annette Hughes. Community Engagement event on November 2, 2016 with the artists and spoken word by Chante Lidell. Exhibit 3: December 12, 2016 - Feb 5, 2017. Refugees and recent Immigrant Artists-- Photography by Selma Fernandez Richter and Fabric Arts by Sara Kidane, Tsehaye Abebe, Bekelu Haile, Rita Butoyi from the Sub-Saharan African Youth and Family Services with community engagement event on January 25, 2017. Tricia, the curator presented about the art program and spoke facilitated conversations on the value of arts and participants were very engaged, even making suggestions about the future direction of the program. Exhibit 4: February 10- April 24-- Muslim Artists: Mixed media by Khadija Charif and paintings by Aziz Osman who both presented at the Community engagement event on May 5, 2017. We were pleased with the level of diversity we were able to represent within our exhibitions. The theme of the program was “Free to be Different Together.” In the same space were able to represent youth artists, Somali artists, LGBTQ artists, artists who are emerging with artists who are more established. We also featured non-traditional artists and a few who have never exhibited before. Most importantly, our community was reflected through the art works displayed at the Center. All the artists allowed us to have the works for extra time (1-2 weeks longer than contracted period) as we had on occasion people who saw the exhibit and asked if we could keep it a bit longer for them to bring other people in their networks to see. The exhibitions were most successful in creating a platform for dialogue and connection around challenging topics. One comment received from a viewer: I was deeply moved by the artwork created by Lynette. I was bummed that I did not have enough time to fully envelope the entire piece and I have not been able to get it out of my mind. Thank you so much for displaying this profound piece.