Title
Franconia - Minnesota Art Explosion Event
Date
Saturday, October 29 - Sunday, November 13, 2022 - All day
Body
"Franconia Sculpture Park and Memorialize the Movement Present Minnesota Art Explosion: an event to uplift and showcase BIPOC talent across Minnesota" is curated by Leesa Kelly of Memorialize the Movement, an ongoing initiative to collect and preserve the plywood art that was created in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th, 2020. Memorialize the Movement creates a safe and inclusive space for people to reflect on the events that occurred during the summer of 2020 and ensure that we continue to help shed light on the Civil Rights movement through artmaking.
This exhibition will open to the public at Franconia Sculpture Park on Saturday, October 29, 2022 with an opening reception from 1pm-6pm. The event will include live artmaking by Sean Garrison, Jose Dominguez, Peyton Scott Russell, Aaron Johnson-Ortiz, and Marlena Myles. The public can also participate in creating their own community mural in partnership with these professional artists, and will be provided with art materials to contribute to a large memorial mural as well as to add to the evolving Dia de los Muertos outdoor altar. The completed mural will then become part of the ever-growing Memorialize the Movement archives. Further, to aid in accessibility and further eliminate the barriers for participation, Franconia will be providing a complimentary shuttle service for audiences via free pre-registration through Lorenz Bus Service to/from the Twin Cities during the Opening Reception, stopping in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Forest Lake prior to coming to the park.
The exhibition will be on public display daily from 8am-8pm through November 13, 2022. In addition, the program will be accompanied by an online discussion with Leesa Kelly of Memorialize the Movement, Jeanelle Austin of the George Floyd Global Memorial, artist Sean Garrison, and Acoma Gaither of the Hennepin History Museum entitled "Why We Remember: Contextualizing Monuments" that will explore questions such as "how and why do we remember our dead?", "why do monuments come down?", and "why the stories we remember are important".