This project includes new exhibit components and enhancements; facilitating diverse workshops and performances for children and families, and four mini camps for children ages 6-12 during school/summer breaks.
We will lift up Minnesota American Indian arts, culture, and heritage and increase our audience through five new activities: presenting “Reunion of the Buffalo Herd”; staging a full production of Tatanka for video recording; establishing an annual RedTalks Symposium; creating a live interview series featuring American Indian elders and traditional healers; and creating an American Indian Artists Hub to promote our artists.
We will add to the number of American Indians presenting artistic work and ideas, and expand our audiences to promote a vibrant, honest American Indian world view in Minnesota by supporting 3 short term projects led by artists in our coalition: The January Buffalo Show, RedTalk Symposium, and Live At the Buffalo Show CD Audio Mastering and short run printing.
Pangea World Theater’s Lake Street Arts!- Circling utilizes story circles, poetry, community conversations and site specific theater to deepen our engagement with stakeholders through the arts to create both a space for histories to be gathered and visions for a more just, sustainable and livable Minneapolis to emerge. Lake Street Arts!- Circling centers the realities and dreams of Dakota, Ojibwe, Latinx, Asian, Immigrant, Black and East African communities along Lake Street.
Pangea World Theater is launching a new institute that brings social practice and community based artists together to utilize Placemaking/Plackeeping projects that center Indigenous, Black and Immigrant knowledge and cultural approaches to transforming Minneapolis and our shared world. The Seeding Change Institute will hold a research and development cohort of ten artists to shape the curriculum and structure for future institutes. The SCI will open to general applications in the fall of 2023.
Passport to Culture: Removing barriers to participation will serve 1500 households, reaching approximately 6,000 children and their adult caregivers from across the region. Passport to Culture eliminates the financial barriers to participation by families most vulnerable in our society, providing membership, enhanced by direct program opportunities targeted to serve low income households designed to create a pattern of use of cultural organizations by families.
The Duluth Children’s Museum has initiated three major programs with the support of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Legacy Funds. This program continues and expands these successful programs to ensure continuity in cultural experiences for the youngest audiences in rural Minnesota. The programs are organized under two major headings: Museum on the Move and Passport to Culture. Passport to Culture is an access program designed to give constituents admission to the museum.
Penumbra is evolving to become a center for racial healing: a performing arts, retreat & learning space developing new work & sustainable programs for social change generated by artists. In addition to running year-round activities commissions, artist residencies, equity workshops & main-stage engagements we're conducting a new strategic plan while widening our circle to evaluate, rebuild & test all programming/curriculum with community to shape a shared vision of Penumbra's next lifecycle.
Weathering, a new play in-progress written by Harrison David Rivers and directed by Talvin Wilks, explores the histories and health outcomes for mothers of color in America. To generate authentic voice and representation, Penumbra’s developing deep engagement opportunities with Rivers and Minnesota’s healthcare professionals/caregivers with help from black doula/midwife circles, and from this commission’s two official sponsors, Regions Hospital and Healthpartners.
Elders and youths will engage with each other to instill a sense of value and validation of one another’s skills and abilities. Participants will strengthen their proficiency in the Hmong language and Hmong alphabet through these lessons. Youths will learn basic conversational Hmong words and they will be introduced to the Hmong alphabet. The youths will learn the skills of storytelling, singing traditional songs, and making and creating their own paj ntaub.
This Minnesota Humanities Center Heritage Grant will allow project partners to plan and design a Chinese garden in Phalen Regional Park to commemorate the City of Saint Paul's Sister City Relationship with Changsha, China.
SEAD seeks to expand on our successful storytelling program by archiving and illustrating first-person narratives from elders in our community. Our proposed program, entitled Collections from Home,will document first-person stories from elders in our Hmong, Viet, Khmer, and Lao communities on topics related to immigration, childhood, homelands, and tradition, which will then be illustrated by emerging artists within our community for publication and distribution.
The Brainerd Lakes area is one of Minnesota's most beloved "up north" destinations. With a population of 162,000 that expands by approximately 300,000 annually, North Central Minnesota is home to a complex mix of year-round residents, second home owners, seasonal visitors, and a growing immigrant population. The area is home to both promise and challenge. WonderTrek Children's Museum and its partners envision a more connected region and state and actively works to create connections by bringing together visitors and residents from diverse backgrounds in shared experiences.
Face to Face is a pilot project of a podcast program at day shelters for youth experiencing homelessness, Safe Zone. The podcast programming will equip youth at Face to Face with the knowledge and skills to create, record, and edit professional-quality podcasts. Youth will select podcast topics and will act as their own storytellers. The resulting creation will be shared on public platforms, allowing for an equitable distribution of youth voice.
To meet our community's call for creative, humanities-based programming for younger students, 826 MSP will offer Identity Exploration through Poetry Field Tripsfor primarily-BIPOC Twin Cities youth in grades 1-2. Students will work with mentor texts from BIPOC poets, write their own pieces, and leave as published poets. Each student will receive a bound anthology including all the poetry from their class and with prompts for extended writing and discussion in the classroom and at home.
Telling Queer History was founded to bring the hidden and undertold stories of queer people to light and to connect our community by fostering compassion, empathy, and healing through curated storytelling gatherings. Since its founding 9 years ago, TQH has recorded these gatherings. In this project, we will transcribe, catalog, and make public this rich collection of stories to share with a wider audience, including those unable to attend past programs and researchers.
Research shows that few young people receive a high-quality social studies education, despite the key role social studies plays in preparing students for civic life. Active and responsible citizens identify and analyze public problems, respectfully deliberate with others, take constructive action together, reflect on their actions, and influence institutions. We support young people in experiential learning that develops the knowledge, skills and motivation to participate in civic life.
Queer Voices helps to expand opportunities for LGBTQIA+ writers of Minnesota and enhance community-belonging through 1) apprenticeships (resume building, skill-setting, expanding networks, and capacity building); 2) two emerging and mid-career writers' retreats (16-18 participants); 3) hosting space at the Queer holiday market (community exposure for artists allowing the public to purchase from queer artists); 4) three panel discussions; 5) documentation of eight events the events listed.
Colors of the North: Preserving Hmong Minnesota Heritage and Paj Ntaub in a Holiday Coloring Book Project, will provide education for student outreach on cultural diversity and celebration that empower the younger generation in building identity and culture within this ever changing and assimilating world through our Hmong Holiday Coloring Project. Our project will bring a sense of belonging and foster wellness in Hmong children and families to appreciate who they are.
This project integrates traditional Hmong healing practices into modern lifestyles and empowers younger Hmong to embrace the wisdom of their ancestors for overall health and well-being.
This project will preserve and facilitate public access to the Northland Poster Collective (NPC). NPC was a print shop in Minneapolis which operated from 1979-2009. The artists who ran NPC created art to represent identities and interests of Latinx, Black, Asian American, LGBTQIA+, and working-class people in Minnesota.
Rondo Community Land Trust will formally weave the arts into cultural preservation. This project includes: 1) Populate a community archive by hosting scanning days for photos & objects. 2) Locate where historic murals were, who painted them, what stories they told & recreate aspects of them. 3) Map historical markers across historic Rondo, prioritizing Selby & engage artists to develop creative alternatives to standard plaques. From here, incorporate narration from community elders telling stories for a self-guided walking tour of Rondo.
Expanding COMPAS' Prism Arts, MN Teaching Artists from African, Indigenous, and/or Asian heritages, will develop & deliver arts residencies that teach an art form with roots in their cultural heritage. Residencies will include learning the art form's cultural context, artists from that culture who have influenced it, and creating the art form alongside the Teaching Artist. Artists will select the MN community where their residency will be delivered, focusing on increasing access to the art form.
Collaboration between African and Asian American artists to jointly create/present a new dance drama - Resonance.
Project Resonance orchestrates new creations of music and dances to serve as a communication bridge across cultural/racial lines, to mitigate racial tensions between African and Asian communities, to illustrate the cross-cultural experience, and eventually promote Intercultural Harmony.
Resonance inspires inner/outer connections to create sustainable impacts.
The Duluth Children's Museum is a place for every family to learn and play. Highlighting local cultures through new exhibits, programming, and partnership, the museum will draw new audiences.
SOMFAM's vision is to build a strong Somali community. With this grant, we will facilitate new avenues for deepening Somali women's cultural identity. SOMFAM will launch a Somali language YouTube channel and Somali Cooking Classes to educate the Somali diaspora, particularly Somali women living in Minnesota, about culture and critical resources, and to empower them to engage with and share their cultural heritage.
The Duluth Children's Museum recently reopened in its new location, providing a firm foundation to serve the community into the future. This project will allow the museum to add two new interactive arts and cultural heritage experiences; Nibi, an Ojibwe language exhibit focused on water, and CreateSpace, an art and maker area.
The Minnesota Humanities Center is dedicated to bringing informative, enlightening, and engaging events to the community, providing all Minnesotans opportunities to build relationships, listen to stories, and learn from one-another.
The Minnesota Humanities Center is dedicated to bringing informative, enlightening, and engaging events to the community, providing all Minnesotans opportunities to build relationships, listen to stories, and learn from one-another.
QUEERSPACE will hire a grant writing expert consultant to 1) support grant prospect research to help identify potential funders; 2) train and assist the Development and Communications Director to review and update current grant materials and language to develop robust and effective grant proposals.
Ragamala Dance Company will develop a new, limited-series podcast entitled Subcontinuity: Voices from the South Asian-American Diaspora. Curated by Aparna and Ashwini Ramaswamy and developed with Public Radio Exchange (PRX), Subcontinuity will explore the significance of South Asian-Americans within the cultural landscape of Minnesota and the U.S. Subcontinuity will feature cross-disciplinary conversations between visionary South Asian-Americans doing vital work that speaks to the current moment.
This project is a documentary film about the intercultural experiences of immigrants living in Minnesota. It features footage of live performances at the Southern Theater, followed by talkbacks with cultural leaders and scholars; and the voices of audience and community members, recorded in post-performance conversations and interviews.
United Family Medicine, a Federally Qualified Health Center, respectfully requests $74,500 to support stipends and commission fees to hire local community artists to create culturally-relevant artwork for our diverse clinic population. Funding through the MHC will invigorate and empower the UFM community in building identity and culture through the patient experience, which includes African, Black/African-American, Latinx, immigrant populations, indigenous, and other communities of color.
Given access to resources & training, educators are in powerful positions to share stories of the people living on the land we call Minnesota. Through the work of Dr. Mato Nunpa, a team of Indigenous scholars & community interviews, Speaking Out Collective will examine how mass murder, wholesale land theft, enslavement and extermination were justified and taught in schools. By centering silenced Indigenous narratives, this project invites students, educators & districts to reconsider MN history.
This project develops and implements an interactive facilitated curriculum for Indigenous leadership-in-action designed to empower Native peoples in Minnesota with traditional knowledge and concepts of leadership that were disrupted by the boarding school era and many other systemic efforts of cultural erasure.
The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University (CSB+SJU), in partnership with the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM), will collect and analyze archival records and oral testimonies on Native American boarding schools in order to develop educational materials that promote truth and healing. The project includes: 1) archival research; 2) oral testimonies; 3) developing curricular materials from these archival and oral records.
With a population of 162,000 that expands by approximately 300,000 annually through tourism, the Brainerd Lakes area is truly a beloved “up north” destination in Minnesota. Brainerd’s emerging Region 5 Children’s Museum (working title) envisions a more connected Minnesota and will actively bring together people from diverse backgrounds in shared experiences through the exploration of northern Minnesota’s rich art, culture, and heritage.
This project will fund a Youth Executive Board (YEB) to create an anthology of youth stories and experiences that describe their identities, stories, and experiences. This anthology will include a variety of interdisciplinary art such as personal essays, poems, visual art, etc., and be a reflective and engaging multimedia project that highlights, preserves, and celebrates the cultural heritage and identities of YEB members and empowers communities to build and preserve their identities.
