Artists Collective for Community Collaboration Microgrant
AC3 will create two art-building workshops for indigenous youth and their families. The work itself will focus on the lives and stories of missing or murdered indigenous women (MMIW) in Minnesota. The workshops will be co-hosted with Anishinaabe Academy (AA) and the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC). At both events, students, their parents, and their siblings will be trained in silk screening production, will manufacture printed fabric and paper arts together, and will be educated in Native American history, culture, and contemporary experiences.
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John Day (St. Paul, MN) – John Day was a part of the Why Treaties Matter selection team, is very familiar with MHC ways of working. He is American Indian. |
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Nanette Missaghi (Eden Prairie, MN) Nanette Missaghi was part of the community work group that developed the educator guides for Why Treaties Matter and instrumental with piloting the guides/exhibit in Eden Prairie schools. She is American Indian. |
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John Bobolink (Minneapolis, MN) was recommended to the panel by the group that created the original Indigenous Arts bill. He is American Indian. |
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Colleena Bibeau (Grand Rapids, MN) – Colleena Bibeau was an American Indian Museum Fellow (partnership w MHS), participated in MHC K-12 professional development. She is American Indian. |
Laura Benson
Minnesota Humanities Center
laura@mnhum.org
651-772-4244
$850,000 the first year and $850,000 the second year are for a competitive grants program to provide grants to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of Minnesota.
The Minnesota Humanities Center must operate a competitive grants program to provide grants to programs that preserve and honor the cultural heritage of Minnesota or that provide education and student outreach on cultural diversity or to programs that empower communities to build their identity and culture. Priority must be given to grants for individuals and organizations working to create, celebrate, and teach indigenous arts and cultural activities and arts organizations and programs preserving, sharing, and educating on the arts and cultural heritage of immigrant communities in Minnesota.
These events are first and foremost art therapy for the community. It is insane how common it is for folks in the Native American community to have a blood relative that is missing or that has been murdered, not to mention suicide. This workshop helps raise the voices of the ignored by uniting us in a unified calling for change. Art helps to humanize us and the workshops help us gather, share stories and heal. This is not just an issue that plagues the Native American community, folks from other POC groups show up to support and share their stories as well.
These workshops are not only a source for folks to come together and heal but it’s a place for others to show up and support. MN350 shows up to support in large numbers as well as folks from MCAD. I have been doing workshops like these for the last four years supporting justice movements. These workshops and public art builds help community organizers from an eclectic range of advocacy groups to converge and support each other. These workshops help humanize us and build relationships in our community. Art is literally a subversive tactic to build community.
Of all the different things participants feel/get from these workshops, the most important is a sense of community unity.
The community showed up to help make hundreds of objects for the MMIW march on Feb. 14th. Folks shared stories and got to know new people they might not have met without the workshop opportunity. Every goal was achieved.
• Patina Park, Minnesota Indian Womens Resource Center (MIWRC)
• Mary Lagarde, Director Minneapolis American Indian Center (MAIC)
• Christine Davisdon, Minnesota Indian Womens Sexual Assault Coalition (MIWSAC)
• Nick Tilsen, President NDN Collective
• Laura Sullivan, Principal Anishinabe Academy.