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Talk-It Hennepin: Creative Urban InterventionsPresented by Hennepin Theatre Trust
 Walker Art Center Now playing through April 28, 2012
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Talk-It Hennepin is a free, four-part series of public conversations and workshops bringing together today’s foremost thinkers and professionals in city planning and urban design with Hennepin Avenue stakeholders. Thank you for your interest in Talk-It Hennepin. Hennepin Theatre Trust has reached its allotted RSVP capacity for the April 26 conversation and April 28 workshop events.Space may still be available for these events. Please call Walker Art Center box office at 612.375.7600 to inquire. For further information, visit Walker Art Center's website. Thursday, April 26, 7–9 p.m. Candy Chang, artist, designer, urban planner and co-founder of the New Orleans-based studio Civic Center, likes to make cities more comfortable for people. Many of her projects combine street art with urban planning and social activism, sparking conversations among strangers in public places and providing people with easy and innovative ways to have a voice. She will draw on many of these concepts in her Talk-It Hennepin conversation. With Before I Die, she transformed an abandoned house in New Orleans into an interactive wall where residents could share their dreams; The Atlantic called it “one of the most creative community projects ever.” She created fill-in-the-blank I Wish This Was stickers for people to express what they want in vacant storefronts. She’s worked with communities around the world - New York, Johannesburg, South Africa; Finland, Nairobi, Kenya; Vancouver, Canada; Querétaro, Mexico and Almaty, Kazakhstan - to address issues ranging from tree-planting to street vendors’ rights. Chang is a TED Senior Fellow and an Urban Innovation Fellow. She was named a “Live Your Best Life” Local Hero by Oprah Magazine. Special thanks to Forecast Public Art for its contributions in making this talk possible. Saturday, April 28, 10 a.m.–12 p.m.
From the perspective of the Walker’s Skyline Room, local artists will help shape the vision for Hennepin Avenue through forms including words, drawings, sculpture, theatre and dance to provide additional information and blend traditional city planning with cultural planning. Workshop participants will articulate their visions for the Avenue. Everyone is welcome, regardless of previous attendance at the April 26 conversation. Background: Earlier this year, Hennepin Theatre Trust received a National Endowment for the Arts "Our Town" grant to develop plans to revitalize Hennepin Avenue into a cultural corridor working with Walker Art Center, Artspace, owner/operator of The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, and the City of Minneapolis. This creative placemaking plan will include recommendations for transit and infrastructure improvements, public art, streetscape designs and ways to increase cultural events and collaboration among the Avenue’s many cultural, business and educational organizations. An urban design team, led by Twin Cities landscape architect Bob Close and architect Mic Johnson, both of AECOM (formerly Ellerbe Beckett), will gather community input and ideas from the workshops to inform streetscape, infrastructure, transit and development. "With a little more conversation and coordination among these groups, we believe Hennepin Avenue could see a big uptick in the volume of visitors and arts activities," said Tom Hoch, Hennepin Theatre Trust President/CEO. Added Olga Viso, Walker Art Center Director, "We hope for the public conversation series to enrich and expand discussions about contemporary city design and issues related to cultural districts and corridors, public space in urban downtowns and arts-driven economic development."
The Talk-It series is part of the broader Plan-It Hennepin, a year-long initiative led by partners Hennepin Theatre Trust, Walker Art Center, Artspace and the City of Minneapolis. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the plan will re-imagine a stretch of this storied avenue as a revitalized cultural corridor from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden to the Mississippi River. The Talk-It conversations will range from the history of Hennepin Avenue to emerging cultural districts and global trends in urban planning, transit and public space. They will be paired with follow-up, interdisciplinary workshops conducted by Twin Cities’ artists to help define values, vision and achieve goals. Related files: |
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