Student design competition opens for George Floyd memorial
A cyclist pauses in front of Peyton Scott Russell’s “Icon of a Revolution” mural at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue after a brief rainstorm on Wednesday, June 9, 2021.
Courtesy of Ben Hovland
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: Well, starting today, design students in Minnesota can submit ideas for a future George Floyd Memorial near the intersection of 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis. Floyd's aunt Angela Harrelson said in a statement about the contest, quote, when it comes to honoring George's legacy, we're calling on the best of the best to help bring that vision to life. After Floyd was murdered by police in 2020, the site became an organic memorial as people made art and left offerings there.
Late last year, the Minneapolis City Council approved a plan to reconstruct the area known as George Floyd Square. The student design contest will run until mid-May. One or more of the winning designs could be a permanent installation. Joining me now are two of the people behind the design competition. Niall-Julian Universe is with the nonprofit Rise and Remember. Thanks for being with us, Niall-Julian
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Hey, how you doing?
NINA MOINI: And we're also very happy to have Anjali Ganapathy, who is the director of undergraduate studies in architecture at the University of Minnesota. Thanks for being with us as well, Anjali.
ANJALI GANAPATHY: Thanks, Nina. Nice to be here.
NINA MOINI: Anjali, I would love to start with you. How did a student design competition become part of this approach for creating this memorial? Why was it important to include students?
ANJALI GANAPATHY: It's interesting. The very idea for this started with students in 2020. In fact, in 2020, my architecture students of color reached out to me, and they were so upset over the events that had unfolded that summer with the murder of George Floyd and wanted to find some way to express their grief and their indignation. And I said as design students, you really can express this spatially. You can spatialize this.
And so a number of students worked together between the University of Minnesota Dunwoody's architecture program and Macalester, and they really started to put together these design boards centered around the square. And we had BIPOC professionals advising the students. And so I think that's where the idea was born. And at the University of Minnesota, I've taught a public interest design class in which the students put together all the research and background that it would take and liked the idea of trying to think through what a student-driven competition at the square would be since it was a full 3 and 1/2 years at the time since George Floyd's murder and nothing seemed to have moved.
And so I think that's really the genesis of it. And we invited the family and Rise and Remember, which is the foundation, to this review. And there was a lot of I think excitement and enthusiasm really growing from the students work about what this could potentially be.
NINA MOINI: Niall-Julian, do you have anything you want to add to that? Do you want to tell us a little bit about Rise and Remember and just the role of students in keeping George Floyd Square going?
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Yeah, of course. Rise and Remember, the nonprofit that I work for, is stationed and was birthed out of the uprisings in 2020. And our whole perspective is property-- people over property and nothing gets thrown away. So when it came to the offerings at the temporary memorial space for George Floyd, we thought it would be an important continuation of the narrative and story of George Floyd Square and how everything came together is putting this design competition in the hands of the students because the movement wouldn't have been created without the audacity in the initiative from the students who felt like that their perspectives were being ignored, that they couldn't be heard, that their pain couldn't be seen. So we wanted to reinforce that idea by standing with the family of George Floyd and with Anjali in supporting the student design competition.
NINA MOINI: Anjali, sorry if this is a silly question, but I'm curious to what exactly the students are to design. Is it up to them? Does it hold something? Is it a standalone structure? Is it open for interpretation?
ANJALI GANAPATHY: I think at this point-- I think we've finally arrived at this point because the city also has agreed to dedicate a certain specific amount of space. I think it's about 25 feet by 19 feet right in front of Cup Foods, which is the site of George Floyd's murder. And I think having the physical space to really start to imagine what could happen in this memorial I think is an important step, and so I think that's what's really made this possible.
So I would say that the student competition is really in some ways just trying to understand the spatialization of racial justice and what could happen, how the memorial stands for George Floyd the man, but it also stands for this larger movement around racial justice, which has actually had definitely nationwide and global impacts. So I think the student competition is really a place of exploration, and we know the physical bounds of the site that'll help. And, of course, we want students to look into the incredible social movement that was catalyzed around the death of George Floyd and try to imagine how they could create whether it's a space or a monument or a structure or something ephemeral, I think those are ideas we're hoping that the competition will help generate.
NINA MOINI: Both have alluded to the importance of preserving artworks and preserving the area. Hard to believe that in May it will have been six years since all of this. And, Anjali, you talked a little bit about how long it has taken the city and people in community to come to a place of even deciding where to go with this area and how to treat the area.
With all of that in mind-- I'll start with you, Niall-Julian-- what are you hoping that this area really signifies from here on out for decades to come?
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: I hope the area signifies a place of not just remembrance, but a moment of coming together. Everything was like we were all inside when this event happened and that where I believe the catalyst of everyone's eyes and undivided attention was available for this and how it spinned into an international event. But decades down the line, I want this to be a location of coming together, healing, and remembrance.
NINA MOINI: What about you, Anjali?
ANJALI GANAPATHY: Yeah, maybe I think of it as a marker of public history. I feel like it's easy to maybe say it's just a space of a memorial. But I think, as Niall was saying, it is this larger space of remembrance. And I think it has taken this long because, A, the community really needed to heal and be given the time to really wrap their heads around what had just happened.
And I think there's so many complex actors that have had to come together in this process. But I think it's really important because I feel like this memorial in a way has crystallized in the minds of the community. Now it's really the community bringing it into public view, into institutional and city and public space frameworks.
NINA MOINI: So before we have to go, I just want to make sure we review. Niall-Julian, I understand submissions for the student competition are open today, but later on, there's going to be a second round open to submissions from around the world. Would you just summarize the process and when everything will come to fruition, when something will be chosen?
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Yes, of course. So the competition is officially open for submissions today. It will be closed for submissions at the end of May. We will have a brief period at the beginning of June where we're going to host exhibits for the top 10 finalists and in the midst of that gallery going around starting at Chicago Fire Arts and being a shifting gallery space at other venues will officially launch or release the press-- do the press release for the global design competition, which should carry us through the rest of the year.
NINA MOINI: Well, we hope you'll both come back and update us at that time. Thank you so much for coming by Minnesota Now. Really appreciate it.
ANJALI GANAPATHY: Thank you so much for having us.
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. Niall-Julian Universe is with the nonprofit Rise and Remember. Anjali Ganapathy is director of the undergraduate studies department in architecture at the University of Minnesota.
Late last year, the Minneapolis City Council approved a plan to reconstruct the area known as George Floyd Square. The student design contest will run until mid-May. One or more of the winning designs could be a permanent installation. Joining me now are two of the people behind the design competition. Niall-Julian Universe is with the nonprofit Rise and Remember. Thanks for being with us, Niall-Julian
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Hey, how you doing?
NINA MOINI: And we're also very happy to have Anjali Ganapathy, who is the director of undergraduate studies in architecture at the University of Minnesota. Thanks for being with us as well, Anjali.
ANJALI GANAPATHY: Thanks, Nina. Nice to be here.
NINA MOINI: Anjali, I would love to start with you. How did a student design competition become part of this approach for creating this memorial? Why was it important to include students?
ANJALI GANAPATHY: It's interesting. The very idea for this started with students in 2020. In fact, in 2020, my architecture students of color reached out to me, and they were so upset over the events that had unfolded that summer with the murder of George Floyd and wanted to find some way to express their grief and their indignation. And I said as design students, you really can express this spatially. You can spatialize this.
And so a number of students worked together between the University of Minnesota Dunwoody's architecture program and Macalester, and they really started to put together these design boards centered around the square. And we had BIPOC professionals advising the students. And so I think that's where the idea was born. And at the University of Minnesota, I've taught a public interest design class in which the students put together all the research and background that it would take and liked the idea of trying to think through what a student-driven competition at the square would be since it was a full 3 and 1/2 years at the time since George Floyd's murder and nothing seemed to have moved.
And so I think that's really the genesis of it. And we invited the family and Rise and Remember, which is the foundation, to this review. And there was a lot of I think excitement and enthusiasm really growing from the students work about what this could potentially be.
NINA MOINI: Niall-Julian, do you have anything you want to add to that? Do you want to tell us a little bit about Rise and Remember and just the role of students in keeping George Floyd Square going?
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Yeah, of course. Rise and Remember, the nonprofit that I work for, is stationed and was birthed out of the uprisings in 2020. And our whole perspective is property-- people over property and nothing gets thrown away. So when it came to the offerings at the temporary memorial space for George Floyd, we thought it would be an important continuation of the narrative and story of George Floyd Square and how everything came together is putting this design competition in the hands of the students because the movement wouldn't have been created without the audacity in the initiative from the students who felt like that their perspectives were being ignored, that they couldn't be heard, that their pain couldn't be seen. So we wanted to reinforce that idea by standing with the family of George Floyd and with Anjali in supporting the student design competition.
NINA MOINI: Anjali, sorry if this is a silly question, but I'm curious to what exactly the students are to design. Is it up to them? Does it hold something? Is it a standalone structure? Is it open for interpretation?
ANJALI GANAPATHY: I think at this point-- I think we've finally arrived at this point because the city also has agreed to dedicate a certain specific amount of space. I think it's about 25 feet by 19 feet right in front of Cup Foods, which is the site of George Floyd's murder. And I think having the physical space to really start to imagine what could happen in this memorial I think is an important step, and so I think that's what's really made this possible.
So I would say that the student competition is really in some ways just trying to understand the spatialization of racial justice and what could happen, how the memorial stands for George Floyd the man, but it also stands for this larger movement around racial justice, which has actually had definitely nationwide and global impacts. So I think the student competition is really a place of exploration, and we know the physical bounds of the site that'll help. And, of course, we want students to look into the incredible social movement that was catalyzed around the death of George Floyd and try to imagine how they could create whether it's a space or a monument or a structure or something ephemeral, I think those are ideas we're hoping that the competition will help generate.
NINA MOINI: Both have alluded to the importance of preserving artworks and preserving the area. Hard to believe that in May it will have been six years since all of this. And, Anjali, you talked a little bit about how long it has taken the city and people in community to come to a place of even deciding where to go with this area and how to treat the area.
With all of that in mind-- I'll start with you, Niall-Julian-- what are you hoping that this area really signifies from here on out for decades to come?
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: I hope the area signifies a place of not just remembrance, but a moment of coming together. Everything was like we were all inside when this event happened and that where I believe the catalyst of everyone's eyes and undivided attention was available for this and how it spinned into an international event. But decades down the line, I want this to be a location of coming together, healing, and remembrance.
NINA MOINI: What about you, Anjali?
ANJALI GANAPATHY: Yeah, maybe I think of it as a marker of public history. I feel like it's easy to maybe say it's just a space of a memorial. But I think, as Niall was saying, it is this larger space of remembrance. And I think it has taken this long because, A, the community really needed to heal and be given the time to really wrap their heads around what had just happened.
And I think there's so many complex actors that have had to come together in this process. But I think it's really important because I feel like this memorial in a way has crystallized in the minds of the community. Now it's really the community bringing it into public view, into institutional and city and public space frameworks.
NINA MOINI: So before we have to go, I just want to make sure we review. Niall-Julian, I understand submissions for the student competition are open today, but later on, there's going to be a second round open to submissions from around the world. Would you just summarize the process and when everything will come to fruition, when something will be chosen?
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Yes, of course. So the competition is officially open for submissions today. It will be closed for submissions at the end of May. We will have a brief period at the beginning of June where we're going to host exhibits for the top 10 finalists and in the midst of that gallery going around starting at Chicago Fire Arts and being a shifting gallery space at other venues will officially launch or release the press-- do the press release for the global design competition, which should carry us through the rest of the year.
NINA MOINI: Well, we hope you'll both come back and update us at that time. Thank you so much for coming by Minnesota Now. Really appreciate it.
ANJALI GANAPATHY: Thank you so much for having us.
NIALL-JULIAN UNIVERSE: Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. Niall-Julian Universe is with the nonprofit Rise and Remember. Anjali Ganapathy is director of the undergraduate studies department in architecture at the University of Minnesota.
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