New initiative to fund arts and culture, promote local communities – The Minnesota Daily

The Cultural Districts Arts Fund is a new city initiative to help communities tell their stories through the arts and improve community collaboration.

Seven cultural districts in Minneapolis — 38th Street, Cedar Avenue South, Central Avenue, East Lake Street, Franklin Avenue East, Lowry Avenue North and West Broadway — will receive funding to promote the area’s culture through arts, events, festivals and more.

Minneapolis Arts and Culture Director Ben Johnson said each district will receive about $100,000, split into three categories: the Cultural District Ambassador Program, the Festival and Cultural Spaces Activation Program and the Pop-Up Art and Cultural Activations Program.

“We just really try to trust the artists and the residents to know what’s best for their neighborhood,” Johnson said. “So we lean on that as much as we can.”

Johnson said anyone can apply for funding and a panel of community members will choose who receives funding. Applicants have one year to use the funds.

“We decided to create a program across all seven districts that really helped bring a lot of creative vibrancy into those spaces, but also support new stories that would happen in those parts of the city and prevent any kind of cultural displacement,” Johnson said.

By continuing to create new opportunities for community arts and entertainment in Minneapolis, people will understand why they live here, Johnson said.

“This is what we value in Minneapolis,” Johnson said. “We are a symbol of what it really means to be at the forefront of innovation and creativity and to do it in a way that is not just about downtown.”

Ali Elabbady, a Minneapolis food critic and writer, said cultural districts hold a special place in his heart, especially Cedar Avenue And highwaywhich he wrote about for Meet Minneapolis. Both areas have diverse cultures that express themselves through food, art, and businesses.

“Both of these districts really bring that small business aspect to the forefront,” Elabbady said. “Not only that, but people of color, as well as Black and brown people owning small businesses and making it part of the woven fabric of the American dream.”

Angela Two Stars, director of All My Relations Art (AMRA), a program under the Native American Community Development Institute, said there is a fence where the Wall of Forgotten Natives stood in 2018. She worries about how people view the American Indian Cultural Corridor on Franklin Avenue.

“I think our community and our children deserve the same sense of beauty that we can show and create in our neighborhood,” Two Stars said.

Two Stars, which will apply for the funding, said it is planning an event to celebrate AMRA’s 25th anniversary, highlighting local artists and the impact it has had on their careers.

Minneapolis City Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw (Ward 4) said she has received several ideas for using the funding in Lowry Avenue, a cultural district in her ward. Those ideas include adding artistic structures to the vacant lots while leaving the lots available for other uses.

“There is a community, but I think this funding builds on the existing community and also creates new forms of community,” Vetaw said.