The Minnesota Artists Guild, an organization hoping to provide local artists with opportunities to network and develop their craft, launched Jan. 30.

Despite launching two weeks ago, the guild looks to create new chapters to accommodate all of its members. Fifty musicians, writers and visual artists have joined the guild’s two Twin Cities chapters — one in each of the cities. 

Guild founder Heather Renne said she hopes to provide artists with a space to connect and help each other’s careers, both artistically and professionally. She said each chapter will host monthly connection salon meetings where each member will briefly present their projects, ideas and concerns to other members. 

“It’s to support artists of all disciplines, to help them form connections and develop and grow their craft,” Renne said. “And, bottom line, it’s to make it profitable.” 

The Minnesota Artists Guild is seeking official status as a charitable non-profit organization. Renne said all of her work with the organization has been as a volunteer. 

“She’s got a real vision for this place,” Patti Walsh, an abstract painter and guild member, said.

Walsh said she discovered the organization while seeking a new board position to apply for. When she saw Renne seeking applicants for positions on the guild’s board, Walsh said she was eager to apply.

“A lot of art doesn’t sell,” Walsh said. “You say you’re an artist and people say, ‘What’s your day job?’”

Walsh hopes she can help the guild find funding through her experience at her day job as the director of communications & fund development of the African Development Center of Minnesota.

Other guild members said they joined to learn about the industry from other artists and experts. 

Filmmaker and guild member Xavier Thomas said trying to make connections with agencies, studios and distributors as an artist in Minnesota is challenging. As a recent college graduate, Thomas said he hopes to learn how to make his projects financially sustainable, or better yet, profitable. 

“I’m not making Avenger movies yet, but I am putting in a lot of time, and I haven’t had the chance to see the return from it yet,” he said. 

Thomas said he hopes to be a professional filmmaker within the next five years. He said he already found work through networking at the guild launch party. 

“I want to make this a reality for myself,” he said.

Even sustaining a part-time career as an artist can be a struggle, surrealist painter and guild member Patrizia Vignola said. 

“An artist’s relationship with a gallery is like a partnership,” she said. “But it has been difficult to find galleries to work with.”

Vignola, a native New Yorker and art teacher at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault said living in Minnesota is great, but she thinks she will need to make connections out of state in order to make her artistic career sustainable. She hopes to make connections with galleries and buyers through networking at guild meetings and events. 

“To me, it’s always nice to have artists around, to inspire you, to talk to,” Vignola said.

POSTER BOY, a newly-formed pop-rock duo of University of Minnesota seniors Cole Pivec and Henning Hanson, said they want to write good songs with catchy hooks and cool riffs that people actually want to listen to. 

Their debut single, “White Walls,” came out last Friday. Pivec said the song reflects their thoughts and perspectives on this past election and how it affected people. 

Fresh off a trip to California where they recorded with Grammy award-winning engineer Patrick Kehrier, the group said they plan to release their debut EP sometime this spring. Both Hanson and Pivec are talented multi-instrumentalists and play several instruments for the project. 

Henning and Pivec formed POSTER BOY after their previous band, rock trio Dial Tone, disbanded for creative differences earlier this year. Daisy Forester, the third member of Dial Tone, is currently performing as a solo artist and in bands Yonder and Favourite Girl.

Hanson and Pivec said their focus is on making music in the studio, not on stage.

“With Dial Tone, it was all about the live shows,” Hanson said. “With POSTER BOY, we’re taking the opposite approach.”

Hanson said he and Pivec are classically trained musicians who want to use their technical ability to make catchy pop-rock songs. 

“I have never had the privilege of working with someone who is this talented and on the same wavelength as I am,” Hanson said. 

Together, the duo works to record catchy, well-written and well-produced songs by recording several short demos at a time and then revisiting them weeks later. If they still like the demo, they turn it into a full song. 

“If we don’t believe in it two weeks later, it probably wasn’t worthwhile anyways,” Pivec said. 

POSTER BOY said they are focusing on recording music that is genuine to our lives at this moment.

“Our upcoming EP is more of a personal reflection on how our relationships with ourselves have changed throughout the past few years,” Pivec said. “We’ve both been through a lot and have had a hard time finding a way to express it.”

The name POSTER BOY was inspired by an archived Instagram account Pivec started before his freshman year. They settled on the name because of its association with an image of success and technical proficiency. 

“It’s sort of an ironic name for a project of two people who just want to make music any way they want to,” Pivec said. 

The duo said they are eager to perform in front of a live audience but want to wait until they have enough material to give audience members a good experience.

Last Friday, The Weeknd released “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” meant to be his final release under The Weeknd name. 

Throughout the album’s 84-minute runtime, the 34-year-old Canadian singer, Abel Tesfaye, covers various genres and themes. Some tracks are rave-ready dance songs with energetic basslines and vulgar lyrics, while others are soulful reflections on substance abuse and dealing with fame over slower, more melodic instrumentals, all tied together with cinematic orchestral synths.

An upcoming psychological thriller film of the same name starring Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan is set to be released May 16.

The Weeknd is known for working with an eclectic range of producers like Daft Punk, Metro Boomin, Pharell Williams and Kevin Parker, and on “Hurry Up Tomorrow” he collaborated with artists like Future, Lana Del Rey and Florence + the Machine. Some of the album’s most memorable moments come from collaboration tracks. 

On the album’s first track, “Wake Me Up,” a collaboration with French electronic duo Justice, The Weeknd sings over a funky electronic arrangement, foreshadowing the French house-inspired futuristic sound found throughout the album. Italian composer and Daft Punk collaborator Giorgio Moroder is featured on another track, “Big Sleep.”

One of the brightest spots on the album is a four-track run telling a story about coping with celebrity and substance abuse, beginning with the song, “Opening Night.” 

A short, less than two-minute track, “Opening Night” shows off a broad range of stylistic influences and willingness to experiment sonically, two of the album’s defining features. In the song, The Weeknd sings about the rush of opening a show, hence the title.

“You know it’s my opening night / Circulation gone, shaking on the floor / Steroids in my lungs, fighting off the mud,” he sings. 

In the following track, “Reflections Laughing,” The Weeknd comes down from the rush of performing and sings more vulnerably about coping with fame. Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine provides guest vocals on the track.

A voicemail recording played about halfway through “Reflections Laughing” features a woman asking about The Weeknd’s safety after a show before the instrumentals transition and Travis Scott delivers a verse.

The Weeknd is more candid about his experiences with substance abuse in the following track, “Enjoy the Show.” The track features an incredible guest spot from rapper Future, who gives a surprisingly heartfelt performance where he both sings and raps.  

“But I’m not scared, fuck it, overdose / No one thought I’d makе it past twenty-four / And when the curtains call, I hopе you mourn / And if you don’t, I hope you enjoy the fuckin’ show,” The Weeknd sings. 

Concluding this series of songs about drugs and fame is “Given Up On Me,” a song that begins as a trap-influenced pop song before transitioning into a jazzy, mellow second half. In the first half, The Weeknd sings about giving up on himself, while in the second, he takes on a much more hopeful tone. 

Not every song on the album shares the same deeply introspective tone. Two of the album’s singles, “São Paulo” and “Timeless,” show The Weeknd experimenting with new sounds in a more fun, lighthearted way.

A collaboration with Brazilian pop sensation Anitta, “São Paulo” was released last Halloween. The song is The Weeknd’s own take on Brazilian funk music and features hard-hitting, distorted basslines and percussion, sounding more like something you would hear at a rave than a nightclub. 

“Timeless,” a collaboration with Playboi Carti was released last September as the first of the album’s singles. The Weeknd follows up a verse by Carti with one of his own, rapping in his distinctly auto-tuned singing voice. 

The Weeknd’s final release perfectly encapsulates the magic that made him famous in the first place, a uniquely catchy blend of dance-pop, rap and R&B fueling his greatest hits. Although its runtime lends itself to some dull moments, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” bookmarks the end of Tesfaye’s career as The Weeknd.

The Black Europe Film Festival (BEFF), a celebration of cinema by Black European filmmakers, opens Thursday afternoon at the Main Cinema with a free screening of Afro-Caribbean short films accompanied by a Q&A with the directors. 

Until Feb. 2, BEFF will host a plethora of screenings at the Main Cinema, Capri Theater and Cedar Cultural Center. Each screening will be accompanied by Q&A sessions with the makers of each film. 

You can view the festival’s schedule and purchase tickets online here. 

Founded by Afro-Italian filmmaker Fred Kuwornu and University of Minnesota Italian professor Lorenzo Fabbri, the festival is the first of its kind in Minneapolis. They said their goal was to bring the often-overlooked films of Black European filmmakers to American audiences. 

“We want to use cinema to represent the rich tapestry that is the Black experience in Europe,” Fabbri said. 

Fabbri and Kuwornu said organizers tried to select films from all over Europe, not just from countries like Italy and France, which dominate the European film industry. Films from Austria, Sweden and the French overseas department of Guadeloupe will be shown during the festival. 

The festival’s outreach director and Eden Prairie High School teacher, Iman Mohamoud said she was excited to work on the festival because it provides a venue for foreign Black filmmakers to showcase their work in America. She said people are often unaware of the high-quality films produced in Europe and Africa. 

“This festival is aimed to try and get as much African representation as possible,” Mohamoud said. “It’s especially important that the people that are telling these stories are people from those communities.”

Mohamoud said organizers made sure to include a variety of features, documentaries and shorts to showcase the artistic and thematic diversity among filmmakers. She said although each film is unquestionably unique, they all deal with deep themes and will spark profound conversations among audience members. 

Many of the films have never been screened in Minneapolis or the U.S. 

Kuwornu hopes the Q&A sessions will allow filmmakers to connect with American audiences and industry professionals. 

Being able to hear African languages and see African films on the silver screen is a very exciting experience because of how rarely African cultures are seen in mainstream media, Mohamoud said. She took her students to a screening of Somali films at another film festival, and the experience inspired her work for BEFF. 

Kuwornu, who has made several films exploring different aspects of Black history and culture, said he has always wanted to organize a festival dedicated to the works of Black European filmmakers like himself.

“I just didn’t think it would be in the United States, much less Minneapolis,” he said. 

Now having taught a course at the University with Fabbri and relocating to New York, Kuwornu said Minneapolis is a great place to hold the inaugural edition of BEFF because of the city’s efforts to promote Black initiatives, its large African population and its film-loving audiences.  

“What better way to kick off Black History month than attending a film festival like this and connecting with filmmakers that have traveled all the way here to have discussions?” Mohamoud said.

Last Friday, visitors poured into the Katherine E. Nash Gallery to view works from University of Minnesota professor Paul Shambroom’s long and celebrated career. 

Shambroom’s “American Photographs” include beautifully shot and composed photographs of landscapes, buildings, people and nuclear missiles. They are on display at the Regis Center for Art’s gallery until March 8.

Much of Shambroom’s work is centered around institutions like local governments and police forces, something he attributed to a life-long interest in politics and conflict. 

“The work I do is kind of a coping mechanism,” he said. 

Two of Shambroom’s most recent projects, “Purpletown” and “Past Time,” are being exhibited publicly for the first time. Both were inspired by the divisive 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. 

“Purpletown” features photographs from over sixty towns across the United States where 2020 election results were evenly divided, or within a margin of less than 1.5%. Shambroom said many people did not realize how politically divided their communities were. 

“I wasn’t looking for symbols of a partisan divide because I don’t know what that would look like,” he said. 

Shambroom said he started “Past Time” after the 2016 election when he was inspired to explore where the images of a supposedly great America came from. 

He spent three years traveling the country to find out what the good old days looked like. He visited the hometowns of several American icons, like Charles Lindbergh’s hometown of Little Falls, Minnesota and Ronald Reagan’s hometown of Dixon, Illinois, photographing scenes of everyday life where revered figures of American culture once lived.

Although Shambroom said neither project was made with a specific political message in mind, he saw a division between the mostly rural subjects of his photographs and his own urban community. He wished people from cities would go out into the country more often to experience life away from urban life.

“We’re all neighbors in this country, whether we like it or not,” he said. 

The military has long been a subject of Shambroom’s work. 

For his 2003 project, “Face to Face With the Bomb,” Shambroom spent several years traveling to military bases across the country and photographing the weapons of mass destruction stored away in restricted areas. He said growing up during the Cold War with a threat of nuclear war looming over his childhood made a big impression on him.

“I also like the process of getting into places others don’t have access to,” Shambroom said.

In “Security,” Shambroom visited several towns used as training grounds for military and police agencies, photographing members of armed service and law enforcement agencies as they simulated various counter-terrorism and nuclear response scenarios. He said he was interested in how the officers acted in the staged scenarios. 

Shambroom’s projects frequently involve painstakingly researching locations and subjects for photographs. 

The gallery also features two of Shambroom’s found photo projects, “Squares” and “Lost.”

“Lost” is a simultaneously humorous and saddening project consisting of missing animal posters that were discolored and warped by exposure to the elements. Sections of the text from the posters are displayed next to the images, giving observers a glimpse into the stories behind each one. 

In the adjoining Quarter Gallery, “The Magnificent Seven,” an exhibit featuring work from seven artists who studied with Shambroom while completing their MFA at the University of Minnesota, is on display. 

Shambroom’s “American Photographs” is a must-see. Each photograph is full of subtle details and immaculate craftsmanship, capturing the fullness of reality in an inspirationally unique way.

Twin Cities United Performers (TCUP), an organization campaigning for better working conditions at local music venues, held an official launch event at Green Room on Saturday.

Over a hundred musicians of all ages, genres and styles came together early Saturday morning to fill both floors of Green Room to learn more about the campaign and its goals. Several TCUP members spoke at the event about the importance of labor solidarity and how venues have mistreated artists. 

“We are to demand a more transparent and equitable music industry for every performer in Minnesota,” said Nadirah McGill, TCUP founder and Gully Boys drummer. “We are here because we are fed up.”

Delicate Friend vocalist and solo artist Andrea Leonard recounted an experience playing at Day Block Brewing Company where she was not paid the agreed rate of $100 per performer after the show. When she first mentioned Day Block at the beginning of her story, several audience members booed the mention of the venue in solidarity with Leonard. 

Leonard said Day Block cited low turnout for not paying the performers. She said TCUP helped her negotiate with Day Block, and she was eventually paid half the original rate. 

Dante Leyva, a member of TCUP and several local ska bands, proposed the city take action and create a live music fund to guarantee performers are fairly compensated for their shows.

“Streaming platforms have devalued our art to the extreme, and payment for live performances has remained stagnant despite inflation in both ticket prices and the cost of living,” Leyva said.

He said if acts were paid $500 a show and about 60 bands played a night, the proposed funding would cost the city an estimated $11 million. 

TCUP is currently developing a proposal for a work advance based on their own research and ideas from local musicians. A work advance is a contractual benefit where employers agree to pay workers part of their salary upfront and follow a mutually agreed-on set of professional standards. 

Attendees were asked to sign a pledge to a shared set of communication standards between musicians and venues by using an advance from TCUP when booking their show. TCUP has yet to finalize a version of their proposed work advance. 

At the campaign launch, TCUP members gathered attendees into small groups to gather ideas and ask questions about their work advance. 

McGill said TCUP plans on publicly announcing their campaign and submitting an advance to venues when they reach 500 pledge signers. TCUP will host six pledge signing events at TakeAction Minnesota in St. Paul.

The campaign started in solidarity with striking First Avenue service workers in 2023.

A First Avenue bartender known as “Megatron” who led the strike in 2023, said at the campaign event on Saturday that venue service workers stand behind the movement of musicians. 

Political non-profit organization TakeAction MN is behind the TCUP campaign. It funds and organizes several local political movements such as a tenants organization in Duluth and a campaign for healthier foods in St. Paul schools. 

TakeAction MN also participates in electoral campaigns through its affiliated political action committee. In 2024, the TakeAction PAC contributed $171,000 to Democratic candidates running for federal office in Minnesota. 

Several Indigenous artisans sold their work to a crowd of curious customers this Sunday at the Native Holiday Market in the halls of the Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center on the East side of St. Paul.

Opening again on Sunday, Dec. 15, the seasonal sale provides an opportunity for local artists to showcase and sell their work. A diverse selection of goods was promoted throughout the event, including several sellers of beaded jewelry and herbal teas. 

Artists at the event were each given their own tables to set up. Many chose to stay at their table to connect with the visitors constantly circling the showroom and observing the exhibited works as both appreciators and potential buyers. 

At one point on Sunday afternoon, so many people entered the market through the cultural center’s youth-led Roots Cafe that a small line formed and poured out the door. Luckily, hungry guests did not have to wait to get something to eat as urban Native food truck Trickster Tacos was parked outside serving up frybread tacos for famished shoppers. 

The adjoining storefront for hand-made holistic healing Eagle and Condor Native Wellness Center allowed guests to skip the line and head straight to the market from the showroom in the back of the shared commercial building.  

Once through the doors, visitors were greeted by a few sellers set up in the dining area. In the main market hall, there was a selection of jewelry, clothes, paintings, herbs and other goods from Indigenous artists awaiting new customers at their display tables. 

A DJ provided a live soundtrack from a set of turntables near the back of the hall. 

Back in the Roots Cafe, customers gathered around the dining tables between the market’s tables to relax and replenish their energy after doing their shopping for the day. Some were so excited to unpack their shopping bags, that they forewent waiting and just ripped into their purchases on the spot.

As 2024 comes to a close and Grammy judges begin to cast their votes, let us take a moment to reflect on what we listened to this year. 

“Chromokopia,” by Tyler, the Creator and “Short n’ Sweet” by Sabrina Carpenter were tied for best album in a Minnesota Daily poll, followed by “GNX” by Kendrick Lamar, and “The Tortured Poets Department” by Taylor Swift. 

“Too Sweet” by Hozier won best song, followed by “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar and “Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter. 

“Sometimes you just need to celebrate the bittersweet things in life, and Hozier’s voice is unmatched,” said an anonymous poll responder.

Taylor Swift sold more albums than anyone else for a third consecutive year, continuing her run as the biggest recording artist in the world.  

Likely spurred by Swift’s influence, country and folk music made a serious comeback this year as artists like Post Malone and Beyoncé fully pivoted to making backroad bangers. Both Malone and Queen Bey scored number-one albums with their country releases this year.

The best-selling single of the year was the country-rap crossover hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey. An interpolation of J-Kwon’s 2004 classic “Tipsy,” the tune spent 19 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

“‘Tipsy’ is one of those songs that just grabs hard on your gut with that nostalgic feeling,” said an anonymous poll responder. “I can’t help but feel warm, and sad.” 

Pop music made a comeback as a serious art form as relative newcomers Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan went from obscurity to conquering the heart and ears of America this year. 

Carpenter, a former Disney star, spent most of September atop the charts after the release of her sixth album “Short n’ Sweet.” The album was eventually dethroned by a re-release of Travis Scott’s 2014 mixtape “Days Before Rodeo.”  

Perhaps more surprisingly, pop sensation Chappell Roan’s 2023 debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” was a huge hit, setting her up for a meteoric rise to superstardom in 2024. Her Lollapalooza performance in August drew one of the biggest turnouts in the event’s history. 

British dance-pop icon Charli XCX turned her tongue-in-cheek club bangers into a full-on cultural movement during the three-month epoch following her sixth release, commonly known as Brat summer. Despite an endorsement from Kamala Harris, the album failed to hit the top of the charts this year. 

Rap legends Drake and Kendrick Lamar stole the world’s attention when Lamar sneak dissed the Canadian rapper on “Like That,” a collaboration with rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin. Drake responded in April with two diss tracks aimed at the rapper, bringing their long-running beef to the mainstream. 

North Carolina rapper J. Cole was also briefly involved in the beef but publicly apologized to Lamar and pulled his diss track “7 Minute Drill” from streaming services after only a week. 

Lamar subsequently released two hugely successful diss tracks, “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us,” accusing Drake of sex abuse. “Not Like Us” became a huge hit, and Lamar will go on to perform at the halftime of Super Bowl LIX in February. 

“GNX,” Kendrick Lamar’s sixth studio album, was met with widespread praise on its late November release. 

Fellow Californian Tyler, the Creator was responsible for another Grammy-season hit with his eighth album, “Chromakopia.” The fifty-minute album is a stylistic ode to the uncanny and off-putting cinema of directors like David Lynch and David Cronenberg. 

International artists were able to make waves stateside too. South Korean boyband Ateez’s autumnal album “Golden Hour: Part.2” topped the charts in between the releases of “Chromakopia” and “GNX.” 

South African singer Tyla’s song “Water” has been atop Billboard’s afrobeat charts for a record-breaking 53 weeks and counting. 

2024 was a big year for music in Minneapolis too. The Twin Cities hosted countless shows by both internationally famous and local musicians. 

Several local acts released new music as well, like indie-rock mainstays Hippo Campus, who released their fourth album, “Flood,” in September. You can read more of our extensive local music coverage here.

Norwegian cultural center Norway House is currently hosting the 10th edition of its annual Gingerbread Wonderland, an exhibit of community-submitted gingerbread crafts based on the world’s largest gingerbread village, Pepperkakebyen, in Bergen, Norway. 

All of the gingerbread creations were made by community members — the young, elderly, professional and amateur bakers. Gingerbread Wonderland coordinator Heather Vick said 229 different works are on display. 

Members of the public can vote on which of the confectionery constructions is the best across multiple categories such as best Minnesota landmarks and best original concept. Vick said critics from the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press came to officially judge the work on display. Submissions from professional bakeries are exempt from competing.

Real-world landmarks, both international like the Eiffel Tower and local like the Wayzata Depot or the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, were popular subject choices. Some are based on incredibly specific buildings, like Kanye West’s infamous stripped-down Malibu mansion. 

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Other works were based on fictional places, like Shrek’s swamp or the house from the cartoon “Bluey.” All were built out of gingerbread, frosting, candy and other sugary sweet ingredients.

“Almost the entire village is entirely edible,” Vick said. 

Even though most of the structures are safe to eat and presumably delicious, Vick said by the time the exposition is over, they have gone stale. In order to avoid excessive food waste, the structures are all composted, Vick said. 

As part of its 10th birthday celebration, Gingerbread Wonderland brought gingerbread artist Caroline Eriksson from Oslo to Franklin Avenue to sculpt a troll out of gingerbread clay. Prominently displayed in the middle of Norway House’s lobby, the five-foot gingerbread troll greets visitors as they enter the building. 

About half of the gingerbread houses being shown were made during three community events where members of the public were invited and encouraged to come down to the Norway House and build their own gingerbread houses for free. 

“Absolutely everyone is invited,” Vick said.

Funded by a cultural corridor grant from the city, the goal of the event is to encourage people from the area to come to learn about Norwegian culture and their community, Vick said. She added that most visitors were unaware of Norway House’s existence before coming to a community gingerbread day. 

Gingerbread Wonderland has become increasingly diverse as the historically-majority Scandinavian neighborhood welcomes new residents of different backgrounds, Vick said. In other years, Indigenous and East African community members have submitted gingerbread versions of locally important buildings like the nearby Native American Community Development Institute and further away East Phillips Community Center. 

Vick said despite not being Norwegian herself, she has continued her role as Gingerbread Wonderland coordinator after retiring from her full-time job because she likes seeing how much people enjoy the exhibit. 

“You have to smile when you’re looking at all these gingerbread houses,” Vick said. 

“Niimiwin,” an Indigenous multimedia art exhibit, opened at the All My Relations Gallery on Franklin Avenue on Nov. 7 and will run until Jan. 18, 2025. 

Thematically, “Niimiwin” is centered around the relationship between movement and identity in Indigenous communities, inspired by traditions of dance and powwow. “Niimiwin” is Anishinaabemowin for “everyone dance.”

Curated by Emerging Curators Institute Fellow Josie Hoffman, the exhibit explores images, space and sound through works from several Indigenous artists spanning multiple creative mediums. Jingle dresses, a ceramic installation and wildlife photography are among the diverse works shown. 

On the first night of the exhibit, the gallery hosted a ceremony with an opening prayer and a performance by the drum group Stonebridge Singers. 

Ceramic artist and member of Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Channelle Gallagher created clay water vessels for the exhibit. She said her work was inspired by reading about Ojibwe craftsmen bringing clay water vessels for trade.

“Of all the things that we could have made to bring to trade, we brought water vessels,” Gallagher said. “I think that speaks to our connection to land, the environment and water.”

Gallagher said seeing the exhibit in its entirety for the first time on opening night was very powerful. Experiencing such a diverse set of works by Indigenous artists is a very healing experience, she added.

Because the art of “Niimiwin” involves both sight and sound, it can feel like a full-body sensory experience.

An installation by ceramic artist Courtney Leonard features a ceramic pot suspended over a pile of oyster shells by cowhide strips. Beneath the pile of shells is a speaker playing drum beats.

Leonard said the music played by the speaker causes the shells and pot to move in place, creating a kinetic movement with a medium that is typically stationary.

A member of the Shinnecock Nation of Long Island, Leonard said she is honored to be invited to collaborate with other Indigenous artists and participate in an exhibit like this. Leonard said Hoffman has allowed a broader audience to see Indigenous art by making “Niimiwin” more accessible than other exhibitions.

“Niimiwin” is being held at the All My Relations Gallery, a program of the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI) dedicated to developing and promoting Indigenous art and artists.

Gallagher, a South Minneapolis native, said that Franklin Avenue and the area around NACDI are important places for the urban Indigenous community in the Twin Cities.

“It’s so important for us to have this gallery and for it to be curated by an Indigenous person, with all Indigenous art, all Indigenous people,” she said.