Convenings
Past Learning Exchange Reports:
Minneapolis, March 8–10, 2002
Andrea Assaf
2002
Intermiedia Arts: Challenges and Methods
As Minneapolis’ Midtown Greenway development project threatens displacement of new immigrants, artists, and other low-income residents, fear and distrust of well-intentioned community development efforts signal the need for new approaches to bringing together the haves and have-nots. Intermedia Arts commissioned Minnesota artists Marilyn Lindstrom, Victor Yepez, Wendy Morris, Ta-coumba Aiken to collaborate with community-based organizations to create and present art that focuses on bringing communities together, with the intent of examining public policy that supports community stability and economic and cultural vitality. In this session, participants actively engaged in some of the artistic approaches employed by the Intermedia Arts team of artists. While exploring content issues of safety, gentrification, and inclusion, we also investigated questions and challenges they encountered in the implementation of their project.
Session and break-outs included:
- Introduction to People Places Connections
- Movement-based Workshop with Wendy Morris
- Painting with Ta-coumba Aiken & Marilyn Lindstrom
People Places Connections
Tom Borrup, Intermedia Arts: The over-arching project is called People Places Connections. It’s about being aware of artists moving into communities and gentrification. Several years ago, we moved into this building and we started having an impact o the community that we did not intend to have. Rents raised and people had to move out. Some of the responsibility was ours, some was not but we have been aware of that. There is an area right near here that used to be a railway trench that’s now being developed into a greenway. To some people it was a home literally; to some it was a safe place to make art. Some people have come to realize that the development cannot only be a green space, but a bike trail and a community space. Corporations want to do things like build a light rail, etc., and you know what that can do. We are interested in equitable community development so we are working with the neighborhoods around the greenway, like HOPE community, in order to use creative process in community development. We have to make community assets and safe spaces to acknowledge what we have and what we can do. We are working with five artists and most of them are here.
Theresa Nelson: I am from the Greenway Coalition. We have board members who live and work in neighborhoods around the greenway. We focus on the development ideas of the different communities. We are interested in use of the space that is sustainable; we work with public art, with Intermedia Arts, and we are working with bridge design. Another area we work with is adopt- a-greenway. We also want to spread the vision so that communities know how this greenway will affect them. This is an exciting moment now because we get to hear voices that have not been active on the project yet.
Tom: As you could imagine, this greenway will have a huge impact. It stretches through many different neighborhoods with extremely diverse income levels and we want it to be a way to bring people together.
Mary Keefe: I am from HOPE Community. The area where HOPE is located used to be the center of the crack epidemic. HOPE started out as a shelter, but now it is a community building organization. We build nice, low-income houses for people to live in, with a community pavilion. At the intersection where it is now, we are going to be building another 40 units of housing in order to provide affordable housing to people. We think of ourselves as catalysts getting people involved and active in their neighborhoods. We have been involved in projects with kids as urban planners. One of the things that we’ve done is ask the residents of the neighborhood what would happen if the neighborhood was fixed up. They said that they would not be there, because it would not be fixed up for them. In a sense, we have made the neighborhood more desirable to outside interest. But we have made an effort to build for the community that is there. We want to be the ones there to create the space to provide affordable housing and preserve the diversity that is there. Building all of this low-income housing is against the city’s policy. They want to raise the tax base in the neighborhood. We want to lift up peoples’ voices, people who don’t have a voice, through community dialogue. I have seen the impact of artists that have been involved in this kind of work. We are excited to have an artist that will work in the community for a few months and help us out.
Q: What is the political context of the twin cities right now?
Tom: There have just been elections, every one elected is a liberal democrat.
Workshop with Wendy Morris
Introductory Exercise
Find one other person you don’t know and ask them what they have to offer the community. In what ways have they been involved in the community? Write these answers down (discussion in pairs).
Wendy Morris, artist: I just want to give you a bit of context. These are asset inventories. I find it really useful when people first enter the room to begin thinking of public space. This is the project: the title is Urban Webs. The focus is movement, community support and intervention. Something I’ve been working with for about 12 years has been creating design teams. Paying attention to how and at what point I receive input from individuals. Last year we had very specific goals. Another is designing the structure. Sometimes I say I will do whatever you tell me to do. Sort of stretching myself as an artist. Another issue is who.
People Places Connections is the over-arching (Animating Democracy) project, and mine is one of the individual projects within that. I kept saying I’m overwhelmed. I am dealing with gentrification, with public space, with the greenway? What I got from the design team was that art can make visible the invisible links between these topics. The greenway has a lot to do with gentrification and with public space.
I’ve been working on this project for 13 years and I am bringing it to People Places Connections.
Q: Have you ever found that a person you are working with was not the person you thought they were? For example, some leaders are very participatory and some are not, and you can find out that, wow, this person doesn’t have a clue what is going on in that neighborhood.
Wendy: Well, if I’m not getting what I need from one place, I usually get it from other places, like my design teams. I’m going to show you a bit of a video, and I will narrate as you see it. One of the things I work on with my design team is where am I going to have this event. This is about an event at a cultural wellness center with dancers from different cultures.
I have been attending a series of meetings about the future of the grain elevator on the greenway. It is the only site that is eligible for historic preservation. We discussed different options for it. Options include renovation and reuse. We did this (video) last week and there were open bags of grain in the basement of this abandoned grain elevator. Just to tear it down would cost two million dollars because of the asbestos and lead. This could be a link between the greenway and the community. I am hoping that using this video, we can create a dance piece out of it. One of my hopes by attending these meetings is that I will build trust with these folks and they will want to create the dance piece. I hope they’ll perform, but they don’t know that yet.
So how can I bring the greenway into Intermedia and use this as a catalyst to discuss these issues? I want to focus on three sites.
Q: Do you have any hope, expectation or thought, that somehow your intervention or project will help in some way to develop the greenway and public space?
Wendy: I’m going to take you through one movement thing to take you through how this might work.
Movement Exercise
Move your body like this. Now move it how ever you want; do what your spine needs to do.
Find someone else’s movement you like and copy it. Pay attention to your own body.
Notice what’s around you. What is in your "neighborhood?" Notice if there’s anything in your neighborhood that you might want to get rid of? Use your body as a way of knowing.
Create a gesture that is part of your cultural heritage, something your grandmother might have done. Go back into your body and find it.
Now make a gesture that allows you to greet your neighbors.
Now combining your cultural heritage gesture, your greeting gesture, and come up with a third gesture.
Now imagine how you would walk down the street differently. (Group dancing)
Someone show me what one of your cultural heritage gestures.
Comment: I go back to Africa somewhere, and this gesture has to do with that. It is very giving.
Marty Pottenger, artist: When you said cultural heritage gesture, you didn’t say something you’re proud of. Mine had to do with something I want to change. It made me walk down the street a little less openly.
Wendy: You see how your cultural background can effect your community in ways you never thought about. Now we’re going to do a writing exercise. I don’t usually do it this way, but we don’t have much time. This is a device to let you analyze what has gone on. (Exercise based on Awareness Wheel model)
5 Areas of Awareness
- Sensory data
- Thoughts
- Feelings
- Wants / Desires
- Action
This is away of getting a bunch of different perspectives on an issue on the table. I will give you one minute to write. Please write based on what you experienced in this hour.
Wendy: What are some things your saw during the last hour?
- Myself moving through the space; connecting with the group though process through movement.
- Something pretty linear that required a lot of thought.
- I saw rhythmic snakes.
- I saw manipulation; your voice and our role as followers.
Wendy: What are some interpretations/associations/stories?
- The affirmation of the paper.
- I felt educated.
Wendy: When I say feelings, think of gut-based emotions – mad, sad, glad, etc.
- I was glad because I think that something like this would be really helpful for the design team that we’re doing.
- I felt conflict in asking myself to participate in what you are doing.
- I made the stupidest most cliché cultural association, but I went with it totally and it was fun.
Wendy: If you use those clichés, there is a great deal of information—in the space between those associations.
Q: How are you weaving the reversal process into the groundwork process?
Wendy: Some will go all the way through and others will go and drift back as audience.
Painting with Ta-coumba and Marilyn
Ta-Coumba Aiken, artist: Please everyone stand around the table and put on a paint shirt.
Marilyn Lindstrom, artist: I am excited to be here because it is an official first step in my community art project in the Phillips neighborhood. Two people are here from HOPE Community, an important organization in Phillips neighborhood. This is Mary Keefe and June Bouye from HOPE.
Mary: We invented this project called Community Listening. We go around the neighborhood and build relationships together. We get people together to have intense discussions about issues and then we write a report afterwards. There are so many perceptions about race and class and about how the city views the community. June is the director.
June: We are going to begin with the listening project. This is how we have worked in the past and we have had great things come out of it. There will be so many things that come out, so many issues that people are thinking about, and we don’t know what the outcome will be; but we are excited to see what it will be.
Marilyn: One thing we have learned is to find out how much we have in common as far as the visions we have for our communities.
Exercise 1
Find someone that you don’t know and pair up with them. You are going to tell your partner 4 things. When you envision a safe place in your community:
- What will you bring for yourself?
- What will you bring for your community?
- What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say “gentrification” (no thinking!)?
- What will you do to make people feel welcome?
These are short answers. Remember what your partner says, and then you will introduce him/her to the group and tell us what he/she said.
Some answers as examples:
- This is Susan. She would bring a book for herself, a fountain for the community, when she thinks of gentrification she thinks money, and food is for welcome.
- This is Tressa, when she thinks of a safe place she thinks of being able to walk home at night from work; for the community a sense of pride; when she thinks gentrification she thinks, “Gone.”
- This is Regie, for himself he didn’t know what to bring, for the larger group he would bring open-mic poetry; for gentrification he thought of high rent; for welcome, benches.
- He would bring his passport for himself, himself for other people, when he thinks of gentrification he sees moving, and he would bring smiles to make people feel welcome.
- This is Sharon, she would bring her whole self, she would also bring food for other people, and gentrification makes her think of restaurants and boutiques.
- She would bring water, food for other people; for gentrification she thinks of fences; she would offer music for welcome.
- Shoes for himself, a cookie for other people, when he thinks of gentrification (this should have been everyone’s answer) Starbucks.
Marilyn: The key thing in that exercise was listening. Of course, there’s a troublemaker in every group.
Exercise 2
Now I want you to say five colors, color off and get in groups based on the color you said.
Attention please. Each group has a can like this and in it are about five different colors. One person will take a color and draw a shape and the next person will react to it. Please no talking during this exercise. This first person is the heartbeat. That person will draw a shape and repeat it. The next person will react to it by drawing another shape. Not recognizable shapes, the shape should come from within you. Do not decide ahead of time who will go first, just let it happen.
People start drawing, taking turns making repetitive shapes. Each group does two of these Spirit Drawings.
Now here is your challenge: each person will make a connecting line from one drawing to the next.
Ta-Coumba: Come down here once you get done and we’ll take a look at all of them.
Marilyn: ake a moment to look at each set. What connects? What’s individual? What’s collective? All right, beautiful work. Ta-coumba is going to take you into the next room and please make a circle around the table with the blocks. We are going to use this in there.
Exercise 3
Ta-Coumba: On these blocks, on the sides that aren’t painted, I want you to paint what you like or are concerned about in relation to gentrification and community.
Marilyn: Remember that you are working in relation to other people.
People paint on the blocks.
Ta-Coumba: In four words or less, tell us what went on here.
- Didn’t know how to make my mark
- Confused, challenged, morose
- Possessive first, then connecting
- Hopelessness, confusion, competition, grace
- Collaboration, individual expression
- Power, shape, line, intimidation
- Fantasy against realism
- Forest for the trees
- Trying to connect beauty with non-beauty
Ta-Coumba: I am Ta-Coumba and I do this in communities.
Group Reconvenes
Sandy Augustin, Intermeida Arts: Welcome Back. We are winding down. I realize the energy is shifting, but I want to gather impressions about what went on today. So I ask, what did you notice and what did you learn?
- Making connections is the most important thing.
- Art and iconography are different things.
- Everyone was able to participate and learn things.
- I found out how hard it is to give directions to people.
- I saw an interesting connection between the choreography that I do and making the art.
- It was fun to collaborate on a piece of art that wasn’t in our discipline.
- When there’s no pressure, it is more fun.
- I noticed how deep the body of knowledge we are all accumulating is in this work.
- When we were asked to do the body movements that related to our cultural heritage and greeting, I noticed how fresh it felt to answer a question through movement.
Sandy: Do the artists have any questions?
Ta-Coumba: I always want to know if what we did was comfortable. Did anyone feel uncomfortable doing the activity?
Marty: Yeah, I didn’t really want to.
Ta-coumba: What happened?
Marty: What was I going to do? I have brought many art forms to people, but I have avoided drawing. Drawing can be a hard one for people to deal with; there is a lot of emotional stuff that comes with it.
Marilyn: Did we give you something that you could take away and use in a different context?
Judith O’Brien, artist: I haven’t touched a paintbrush in decades and I was glad for the opportunity to do that. I also thought it was great that you offered such an easy way to collaborate.
Abel Lopez, project liaison: I didn’t feel the pressure of having to think about what I was doing, but the process then makes you think.
Marilyn: I do this with kids, and part of it is that you don’t have to think. At schools, the kids would be in the hallway laughing and screaming. We would always do the Spirit Drawings, and they’d come in and wait to do it—there is no talking, so they would be silent, because there’s something so amazing about it.
Kathie deNobriga and Bill Cleveland introduced the Open Space Technology process for the following day. The session ended with everyone singing “We who believe in freedom cannot rest...We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes…until it comes.”
