'We all have a place': New mural along Lake Street showcases mosaics, community portraits
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Community in south Minneapolis recently celebrated the installation of a new mural. The 5,200 square foot public artwork is located at the underpass where Hiawatha Avenue and Lake Street intersect.
Natchez Beaulieu, Daniela Bianchini, Pablo Kalaka and Greta McLain were members of the artistic team who created and installed the mural.
The mural explores the community’s history, diversity and various cultures while being grounded in the medicine wheel — a symbol in Indigenous communities.
Beaulieu, a White Earth Nation citizen, says the medicine wheel represents balance and strength.
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“The intention of the mural is that we all belong here. We all have a place. We all are part of this goal, this medicine wheel,” Beaulieu said.
Mary Altman is the public arts administrator for the city. She says artists with connections to south Minneapolis were specifically chosen to design and install the artwork.
“The community told us they also felt really strongly that the artists needed to tap a lot of knowledge about this community in particular,” Altman said.
She says impacts from the 2020 police murder of George Floyd affected the community along Lake Street.
“This community has worked really hard to come back from that, and I hope to a great degree that they really feel celebrated through the mural, that the mural is really honoring who they are,” she said.
‘It belongs to all of us’
The mural is a part of initiatives to make the intersection feel safer and more comfortable. By enhancing the walls of the underpass with vibrant artwork displaying the diversity of people living in the community, Altman says the city hopes to make the space feel more welcoming.
“We all wanted them to have ownership of the space and feeling like they belonged there,” she said. In addition, light fixtures have been integrated into the artwork to illuminate the underpass.
Beaulieu, alongside other artists involved, held pop-up community workshops and engaged local schools and youth. Beaulieu says students from South High School in Minneapolis helped apply the base paint of the mural.
“It's just a labor of love. It's a lot of love poured in. The more hands that touch this, the better, because it belongs to all of us. And I think that was what really is the idea of the mural is that it's ours,” Beaulieu said.
Other workshops were intergenerational and included a wide range of community members from diverse backgrounds.
McLain is another artist who worked on the mural alongside Beaulieu. McLain says between three and four hundred people worked on the mural.
“It was just such a beautiful opportunity to get to weave together all of these different community narratives,” McLain said.
The artwork explores the history and diversity of the area through mosaics, florals and portraits of community members. Beaulieu says more elements within the mural feature imagery, such as Indigenous plant medicines and monarch butterflies, representing individuals and families who have moved to the area.
The mural also pays homage to movements like the American Indian Movement and Black Lives Matter.
“A lot of it is elements to spark curiosity to learn about things at our, you know, knowledge of the past and to carry into the future,” Beaulieu said.
Minor oversight
In one section of the mural, figures marching with signs representing social and political movements are shown. A sign features a green bus with a quote from former U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone. The quote reads, “We all do better when we all do better.”
The inclusion of this image sparked comments online regarding credit to its original creator and copyright owner, local artist Amy Rice.
MPR News spoke with Rice. She says she accepted apologies from both the city and artists, calling it an oversight during the planning process.
“When it really comes down to it, I feel core humbled and honored that I had a team part in something that's really pretty cool,” Rice said. She says since creating the artwork ten years ago, she has given permission to nonprofits and political leaders who have requested to use it.
McLain says Rice created an artwork that has stayed in community members’ memories.
“She created a beautiful and important visual, and that we would really like to honor her in that,” McLain said.
Both Rice and Altman said the city entered into a licensing agreement to use the artwork in the mural.
Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
