325 Blake Road, Hopkins Community Engagement
Participate
Do you live near Cottageville Park in Hopkins, Minnesota?
We want to hear from you about a new development in the area.
Take the survey below and join us for fun and creative events.
#MyBlakeRoad
Overview
Forecast, in partnership with the City of Hopkins, Alatus, and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, are facilitating creative activities to envision the future public amenities at 325 Blake Road. We have hired artists to develop creative activities and engage with community members who live near this site.
How you can participate
Attend one of these activities:
- September 27 5:00 – 7:00pm at Creekwood Estates | join Collage building & conversations with artists Katrina Knutson and Sayge Carroll
- September 28 5:00 – 7:00pm at Sambusa King | write and dream in ‘I come from’ Poem Making with artist Briauna Williams
- September 30 4:00pm at Cottageville Park | listen and imagine in a Storytelling Circle with artist Abdurrahman Mahmoud
- October 9 2:00 – 5:00pm at Cottageville Park | hear Water Stories from artist Fern Naomi Renville
- stay tuned for new date and time – at Cottageville Park | help activate a Chalk Wall with artist Genie Castro
Who
- #MyBlakeRoad is a community engagement project of the City of Hopkins and the development company Alatus, LLC.
- Forecast is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is leading the project and has hired artists with a connection to Hopkins to support community engagement.
What
- Hopkins & Alatus are interested in learning from residents around the 325 Blake Road site about:
- Public Spaces– how would you like to use the many public spaces within this development and what are important features?
- Public Art – there will be opportunities for public art. What do you want public art to say about your community?
- Wayfinding – what would make it easy for you to find where you want to go? For example, signage, symbols, public art, technology.
- Businesses – what kinds of businesses, types of foods or goods and services would be convenient for you?
- We want to hear from you and your thoughts will help make this a more welcoming development.
Where
- 325 Blake Road is an important site near Cottageville Park and Minnehaha Creek with access to the Cedar Lake Regional Trail and the Blake Road Light Rail Station. For those of you who have been around awhile, it’s the former cold storage site.
When
- Community engagement events are planned between late September and October 2022.
- Construction of the first apartment building is planned to start in September 2022 and a Groundbreaking Ceremony is planned for October 12, 2022.
- The project will be completed in multiple phases over several years.
Why
- We want to hear feedback from residents who live near the 325 Blake Road development site–particularly renters, BIPOC community members, transit riders, and youth.
Additional Background
The City, Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, and Alatus are working together to redevelop of the 17-acre site at 325 Blake Road. Alatus plans to build a variety of housing, restaurants and commercial space, as well as exciting public spaces with plazas, courtyards, promenades, and connections to Minnehaha Creek, Cottageville Park, the Cedar Lake Regional Trail and the future Blake Road Light Rail Station.
A goal for the overall development is to be open, inviting, and serve as a community hub, rather than feeling like a private neighborhood.
Find more information about the development.
View a fly-through video of the development.
325 Blake Road ARTISTS
Abdurrahman Mahmud
Forecast Public ArtRead Abdurrahman’s Bio
Abdurrahman Mahmud (He/Him)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Abdurrahman is a creative organizer and storyteller. As a culture and community admirer, he founded Twinist – a platform that advocates for and connects minorities and immigrants to millions of job opportunities through volunteering and personal brand development. He is also an immigrant advocate in Minneapolis, founding the “City of Nations Storytelling Studio” which uses theatre, film and storytelling to empower local residents to be advocates for their own health care, create a dialogue about community health and use art as a means for overcoming stigmas and obstacles. Abdurrahman has a decade of management experience in various areas, including public health, humanitarian assistance, and human rights, as well as designing and implementing community-driven development initiatives. He lives in Minneapolis, and Galkayo, Somalia is his home.
Briauna Williams
Read Briauna’s Bio
Briauna Williams
Minneapolis Native.
A graphic design graduate who has been drawing since the age of five. Always having the dream of wanting to change the world with her work. Briauna, colloquially called Brii Noir, is an all around creative; most of her work, she’s wearing the hats of an acrylic artist, muralist, henna artist, teaching artist and community engagement artist. She draws inspiration from her family, social Justice, and nature. Using paint to tell stories—Ones of empowerment, and resilience. Briauna began painting as an outlet in 2017. She found it very therapeutic and it soon began to open many doors for her and her work, soon blossoming into a platform to share her tools of healing with community through her many self-curated events. Briauna is now hosting events and painting murals throughout the Dfw area as well as Minnesota.
Fern Naomi Renville
Read Fern’s Bio
Fern Naomi Renville is a storyteller, theatre artist, and educator who shares Indigenous knowledge in the form of traditional and contemporary stories. Fern is an enrolled citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and is the great-great-grand-daughter of Chief Gabriel Renville, also known as TiWakan.
Genie Castro
Read Genie’s Bio
Genie Castro is a community leader in the arts. She creates unity with projects she is involved in by connecting with people. She encourages students and clients to get into the creation process and learn through that exploration. Castro took the lead as director and owner of a printmaking studio in the Casket Arts Building in North East Minneapolis at the beginning of 2022 called SuperCharged Printmakers. It is there she and other printmakers create an inviting space for artists to create freely in the medium of printmaking and have showing opportunities.
Castro has an art gallery booth at the Minnesota State Fair and with a team of artists they sell and promote one another during the 12 days of the fair and beyond. It is this entrepreneurial drive that keeps Castro creating unique experiences for people. The Cream of the Crop Artists Gallery located in the West End Market at the fair has had so many folks coming back year after year since 2015.
Prior to becoming Super Charged Printmakers’ director, as an administrator Castro has worked with Mia for over a decade through their Art Adventure and Art Perchance programs. She began and ran the annual fundraiser for Willow River Elementary in Hudson, Wisconsin for 14 years. She served on the board at Vesper College in 2011-2012, and from 2014-2020 she was the membership director and art curator at Betty Danger’s Country Club(BDCC). In her BDCC role she discovered the tremendous value of being a Northeast Minneapolis Artists Association(NEMAA) member as an individual artist. NEMAA has been directly responsible for the promotion of artists and community and Castro sees that as a huge role model in her businesses. It is with this teamwork that her and her businesses have been part of the promotion of major events by being featured on the Fox 9 news and other cross-promoting efforts and great opportunities.
As an artist, her work has hung alongside artists Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Frank Stella, Robert Longo and Donald Sultan and was in the Collection at the Chelsea Tahari Showroom in New York’s Art District. Her art is featured in the homes of many private collectors and in public and corporate collections. She works as a corporate curator with Aimia and Patterson Thuente IP. She has been honored to donate her artwork to the Auction at MCAD for the past 3 years and her monotypes and screenprints have been auctioned off to go to the scholarship program at the college. She is involved in the Continuing Ed Printmaking Department at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design(MCAD) both as an educator and a student. Castro is excited to serve on the team of artists/art directors at the Project at 325 Blake Street in Hopkins.
Sayge Carroll (team)
Forecast Public ArtRead Sayge’s Bio
Sayge Carroll has tended the soil of community through art for more than 20 years. Through visual art, sound design and civic engagement they have devoted their life and work to connecting ancestral wisdom, lineage, and knowledge of natural resources to the present. As an artist they have held residencies with The Walker Art Center and Mia. Carroll has given lectures as a visiting artist at Carleton College, NCECA and MCAD. Carroll has curated national shows, received grants, and offered consultation services around inclusion and building diversity to organizations such as Northern Clay and the city of Minneapolis. She has worked in arts education for over 2 decades, teaching at schools such as The University of Minnesota and Carleton College. Carroll spends much of their time building community and creating arts programing at places such as Franklin Art Works Gallery, Juxtaposition Arts, Youth link and Little Earth. Carroll founded personal projects such as the Women of Color Artist Gathering, Art Church and Cross County Arts. Carroll is passionate about arts as a life practice and an approach to building community in a sustainable and inclusive way.
Katrina Knutson (team)
Read Katrina’s Bio
Katrina Knutson was born in South Minneapolis and raised on working class ethics, progressive politics, and hip-hop culture. Since then, she has worked, painted and lived across North America, studying art and looking for inspiration under bridges, on the streets, and in galleries. But, no matter how far she travels, Minneapolis will always be home.
Katrina designs and teaches visual art workshops and classes across the twin cities and in greater Minnesota at galleries, art centers, libraries, and schools. She is an active community muralist, you can see her work on walls all down Franklin and Lake Street and other corridors in Minneapolis and St Paul.
The connections between justice, collaboration, creating, building, teaching, learning and sharing is central to the way Katrina lives her life and what she hopes to accomplish in her work.
We hired artists who
- Can use art to inspire and engage with the community.
- Are comfortable talking to strangers & meeting new people.
- Listen to the community’s vision for a welcoming, inspiring, fun place to inform a clear call to artists to be developed by Forecast for future public artworks.
- Are connected to this neighborhood or its diverse cultures in some way.
In order to
- Share information about this project with community members through inclusive, hands-on, and engaging creative engagement activities, where the public have opportunities to share their thoughts, comments, and concerns in a variety of ways (written, spoken and visually).
This work will
- Seek input on how these public spaces can be safe and welcoming to all, and especially the surrounding residents.
- Inform future public art and wayfinding projects in the development to reflect the diverse cultures in Hopkins and this neighborhood.
- Be shared with the entire project team [the City, developer, landscape architects, and Minnehaha Creek Watershed District] to create visual cohesion across the development and signal that it is public space and available for everyone.
- Help inform other future adjacent public art projects, such as a mural project led by Three Rivers Park District for the Cedar Lake Regional Trail tunnel that is adjacent to the site.
TIMELINE
Submit any questions to
yarlyn@forecastpublicart.org
ABOUT
Forecast Public Art is a non-profit arts organization founded in 1978 by and for artists working in public space. Based in Saint Paul, Minn., and working both locally and nationally, Forecast connects artists with cities, institutions, and communities to courageously tackle the vital issues of our time. Forecast partners with decision-makers and stakeholders on arts and cultural planning efforts and supports public artists with funding, training, and opportunities to create partnerships and advance their public art careers. Forecast also helps others find, select, curate, fund, and commission public artists. Forecast emphasizes access for artists of color, indigenous artists, and groups that are traditionally excluded.
STAY CONNECTED
Receive our monthly newsletter
WORK WITH US
Let us know how we can help
SEE OUR WORK
What’s happening at Forecast
MAKE A GIFT
Help make our work possible
(651) 641-1128
INFO@FORECAST
You must be logged in to post a comment.