Night and Day: Murals, Memory, and Movement was a large-scale exhibition and public programming initiative presented during the 2025–2026 exhibition season through a partnership between St. Catherine University and Memorialize the Movement (MTM), a Minneapolis-based living archive dedicated to collecting, preserving, and activating the plywood protest murals created during the Minneapolis Uprising of 2020. Curated by Leesa Kelly and Amira McLendon, the exhibition utilized both the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery and The Frey Theater as interconnected storytelling spaces that explored the emotional and political landscape of the uprising through murals, archival materials, performance, film, and community dialogue.
The exhibition examined the dualities that defined the uprising, including protest and protection, grief and joy, destruction and creation. Through preserved protest murals and archival documentation, Night and Day highlighted how communities organized, expressed collective grief, demanded justice, and cared for one another during a period of national unrest following the murder of George Floyd. The curatorial framework centered the understanding that memory is political and that protest murals function as acts of storytelling that resist historical erasure. The exhibition intentionally foregrounded the breadth of experiences represented during the uprising, from calls for justice and accountability to affirmations of Black life, healing, and collective care.
Presented in partnership with The Frey Theater at The O’Shaughnessy and the St. Catherine University Amy Marie Sears Memorial Visiting Artist and Curator Series, the exhibition featured extensive interdisciplinary programming designed to deepen public engagement with the themes of memory, justice, and public history. Programs included a panel discussion with mural artists Lissa Karpeh and Donald “Bayou” Thomas, a screening and discussion of Alec Fischer’s documentary Memorializing the Movement, and a collaborative Paint to Express workshop and book discussion centered on Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Message as part of the university’s One Read for Racial Justice initiative.
The exhibition also informed Aftermath, a movement and storytelling performance presented by The O’Shaughnessy and directed by nationally recognized choreographer Dominic Moore-Dunson. In partnership with Katie Leadership Impact, the project brought together artists, activists, students, and cultural leaders to explore themes of healing, resilience, collective action, and community response following incidents of police violence.
Beyond the gallery space, Night and Day functioned as a living classroom and site of public memory, including tours in more than 15 university classrooms that used preserved protest art to examine how communities document resistance, preserve lived experience, and construct collective narratives in the aftermath of trauma and social upheaval.
