Neighbors and community members listen to Heid Erdrich talk about the poetry components of the Anpetu Wa’ste Cultural Arts Marketplace project at the design unveiling celebration

Neighbors and community members listen to Heid Erdrich talk about the poetry components of the Anpetu Wa’ste Cultural Arts Marketplace project at the design unveiling celebration.

Another month of construction has completed at the future Anpetu Wa’ste Cultural Arts Marketplace. Our underground electric work is complete within the median and conduit has been installed underneath Franklin Avenue to provide power to the project for the streetlights. Most of the new trees have been planted and areas that needed it received new grass seed.

We hosted a community design unveiling celebration at Verdant Tea, a neighborhood business. We had a crowd of about 50 people join us to see the new designs, hear from artists and architects, and we finished off the evening with a reading of some of the poems that will be included in the final design of the Marketplace. We all shared great food from the neighborhood as well as great tea. The crowd represented the diversity we are hoping to achieve with the project; we had people from both sides of the Light Rail Station, strong Native Community representation, and lots of folks from the local business and non-profit communities.

In advance of the design unveiling, our project was featured on the local evening news. This was great coverage that is continuing to raise the visibility our the project in the region.

We also secured a partner for the fabrication of the fence panels that we are working with Lakota Lifeway Practitioner, Francis Yellow, to design. We are now partnering with the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center, a community-based fire arts program that engages community, and in particular youth in the creation and fabrication of metal work and other fire-based art techniques. The Fire Arts Center was also a partner in another ArtPlace-funded initiative, the Chicago Avenue Project by Pillsbury House + Theater. We are excited to join with the Fire Arts Center and develop a shared vision for the implementation of the project.

Our insight for the month, is that it’s never too late to partner. Even as our project is nearing the end we are still finding opportunities to bring new partners into the project like the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center. These partnerships continue to broaden and strengthen the work, as we also develop a stronger network of practitioners in creative placemaking in the Twin Cities.