Goals

The goals for the public art project are:

• Prioritize Indigenous history and the relationship between Hennepin Avenue and social justice movements
• Result in a piece of art that encourages local residents and visitors to:
  • Engage
  • Share their experience
  • Express greater appreciation for diversity, equity and inclusion

A public listening session was held with artist Rory Wakemup on Tuesday, December 7, 2021.

History

Downtown Hennepin has one of the City’s most interesting streetscapes and a very rich history.

• At the core of this portion of Hennepin is the Hennepin Theater District. It has a rich history and includes three more historic theaters:
  • The Hennepin Center for the Arts
  • The Minneapolis Central Library
  • The Lumber Exchange Building.

This portion of Hennepin was a stretch of an old Dakota trail linking the Mississippi River and Saint Anthony Falls to Bde Maka Ska.

Hennepin has inspired artists for years.

• The celebration of the opening of the Hennepin Center for the Arts in the early 1980’s culminated in a record-setting number of tap dancers performing in the street.
• In the late 1980’s it was the site of the Minneapolis Arts Commission’s first public art project, a competition for artist-designed benches. Patrick Scully’s 1990 performance, Too Soon Lost, alternated between stories of friends lost to the AIDS epidemic and stories and dramatic film footage of the demolition of Block E on Hennepin.
• In recent years, the Theater District has also become known for its vibrant public art and murals, the Made Here project and, currently the It’s the People Project.