As the pale gold light of a December afternoon filtered into the Minneapolis American Indian Center, a dozen poets formed a circle in the center’s rotunda.
They had spent the afternoon at Minneapolis Poet Laureate Heid E. Erdrich’s poetry pop-up, writing about rivers, intersections and their connection to place.
It’s one of several events Erdrich has held this fall, part of a “Build a Poem” project which invites Franklin Avenue residents to contribute lines to a collective work.
This weekend, the American Indian Center will draw a different group of artists and musicians as the Two Rivers Gallery holds its “From Heart to Hand” arts and crafts market.
Both the poetry popup and the gallery’s work are part of a major city initiative to build community and revitalize neighborhoods through the newly launched Cultural District Arts Fund.
This fall, the city awarded $690,000 to projects in seven cultural corridors, including Franklin Avenue East, where grants were focused on Native storytelling and cultural heritage.
Other corridors included East Lake Street, Cedar Avenue, 38th Street, West Broadway, Lowry Avenue and Central Avenue.
Each district is supported by a “Cultural District ambassador,” who receives up to $15,000 over 12 months to empower local artists, support organizations and facilitate community projects through quarterly meet-ups.
“It’s a way for the neighborhood to actually support the coming together of everybody who has an investment in living there and wants to make the neighborhood better,” said Ben Johnson, head of the city’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Department.
In addition to supporting grassroots initiatives, the Cultural District Arts Fund also includes a Festival and Cultural Spaces Activation Program, offering up to $16,700 for both new and existing festivals and cultural spaces facing displacement due to gentrification.
“Where artists go, the community follows,” Johnson said. “They have a penchant for bringing the community together and making the neighborhood more beautiful, whether through street parties, in-school workshops, or mural-making.”
The initiative also offers $5,000 grants for innovative projects under the Pop-Up Art and Cultural Activations Award.
“Anyone from Minneapolis can apply for this funding,” Johnson said. “The program just has to happen within the seven cultural districts and within five blocks of the district.”
This encourages diverse institutions — such as schools, churches, local businesses, and individual artists — to propose arts-based initiatives that enhance community engagement.
“Are there artists who have always had some crazy, wild, fantastic idea that they’ve always wanted to do?” he said. “We want to help them implement their projects, see if they work, and then come back for more funding in the future.”
Indigenous voices amplified on Franklin Avenue
Franklin Avenue East, a central hub for Indigenous arts and activism, is among the districts receiving funding from the city. Two Rivers Gallery, housed in the Minneapolis American Indian Center, has been named the district’s cultural ambassador, highlighting the gallery’s integral role in preserving and promoting emerging Native artists in the area.
This recognition “comes with a lot of pride and respect,” said Lydia Four Horns, the gallery’s art consultant. “It acknowledges the experience and long history that the Indian Center has in supporting the arts and our Indigenous people in the Twin Cities.”
The funding will help cover the gallery’s operational expenses, which often go unsupported.
“I see this as an opportunity to be able to have room to breathe and focus on supporting the community directly,” Four Horns said. “These remedial things … like marketing and staffing … those are the kinds of things that we don’t get funded for.”
Two Rivers Gallery will also be strengthening ties between local artists and the community through events like the Native Youth Arts Collective Showcase, held in collaboration with the Little Earth Residents Association’s Native Youth Arts Collective. The upcoming “From Heart to Hand” benefit, scheduled for December 7 and 8, will feature Indigenous artists, traditional crafts and music performances.
“A lot of Indigenous people — when they come to the city — make an effort to visit, and I see the importance of having a space like this in our communities,” Four Horns said. “It not only connects you with your history and your culture, but it also gives you pride in who you are.”
Arts festival and community poetry projects
Among the recipients of the Pop-up Art and Cultural Activation award is Erdrich, the city’s first poet laureate. The Ojibwe author received $5,000 to lead her “Build a Poem” project.
Her poetry pop-up on December 5 drew several established poets, including local writers Su Hwang, Sun Yung Shin and Pauline Danforth. She also met this fall with neighborhood residents at the Four Sisters Farmers Market, including some who told her they “they had never written poetry before,” she said.
Erdrich is also collaborating with 20 poets to create poems that engage with Minneapolis locations that are significant to Indigenous people.
“As a Native person living in the city, these areas along the waters, lakes and rivers are apparent to me,” she said. “I want to highlight places where our communities have gathered historically, including those that still contain Indigenous plants and heritage.”
Erdrich will launch her upcoming chapbook, “Verb Animate,” on December 14 at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. This collection, created in collaboration with local visual and performing artists, features essays, poems and QR codes linking to short films.
“Minneapolis is rich in poetry and visual arts,” Erdrich said. “We have that beautiful poetry bridge at the Walker. I don’t think many people know about it — the poem that’s written into place. There’s a great piece of artwork that was just installed at Cedar Riverside that has poetry from folks from immigrant communities. I think we need more things like that.”
Red Eye Theater received a $15,000 Festival and Cultural Spaces Activation award to enhance community outreach efforts in Franklin Avenue for their annual “New Works 4 Weeks Festival.”
“We’ve been in the neighborhood since 2022 and have spent the last three years focusing on building and raising money,” said Valerie Oliveiro, the theater’s co-artistic director. “But we’re at a place now where we can actually look up and look around.”
The performing arts festival provides artists with a platform to share works in progress, test new ideas and receive audience feedback.
“The first week focuses on works in progress, where artists share a 15-minute segment of their ongoing projects,” Oliveiro said. “They could be trying new ideas, focusing on singular choreographic material or building out a concept. It’s really about where they’re at in the creative process.”
The following weeks will feature two new artists supporting each other and presenting more developed performances each weekend. “We hear a lot from artists that being exposed to other people’s creative process validates their own process,” she said.
The 2024 “New Works 4 Weeks Festival” has already showcased powerful pieces, such as Noelle Awadallah’s “Returned Arrived,” focusing on Palestinian liberation and Dameun Strange’s Afro-futuristic theater experience titled “O.S.A.G.D. (Of Starlight and Great Distances).”
“It would be amazing if the city continued this funding, especially in communities of color so that we can continue this work,” Oliveiro said. “We have to value the arts, the events, the gatherings, because it’s where we find connection and empowerment in our community.”
Sahan news editor Trisha Collopy contributed to this report.
