Browse Exhibits (11 total)

• 
  Art and Artifact: Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising

  Hosted at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery in the Regis Center for Art on the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus; the exhibition was curated by Amira McLendon, a former intern and now Collections Manager. The exhibition features murals made in 2020 and beyond made by local artists. With this exhibition, Memorialize the Movement published it's first catalog in collaboration with the Katherine E. Nash Gallery. This catalog is a small sample of the murals in our collection, featuring roughly 100 murals; since shortlisted for the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions. Essays from various contributors like Leesa Kelly (Founder and Executive Director of Memorialize the Movement) and Steph Rodney (Curator, Art Critic, and New York Times writer). We hope to inspire people to reflect on 2020 and the events that conspired, then challenge them to face the realities of 2024. Where are we now? What has changed and what hasn't? Am I proud? Through these questions, we aimed to spur action in the visitor as they leave the exhibition and reignite the passion that touched the world.

• 
  Festival for Change

  Roseville-based faith communities and Twin Cities BIPOC leaders partnered for the first time to present the two-day Festival for Change: Celebrating Cultural Wealth and Togetherness. The initiative was rooted in a shared vision of bringing people from diverse backgrounds together to foster dialogue, strengthen relationships, and break down barriers between communities. The event also marked an important milestone for Memorialize the Movement as its first collaboration with a religious institution.

  Originally planned as an outdoor event, the exhibition was relocated indoors due to weather conditions, resulting in MTM’s first indoor installation. Festival for Change featured the exhibition alongside performances and presentations by local artists Joe Davis and Melodee Strong, as well as informational tables highlighting the work of local justice-centered organizations.

• 
  Justice for George: Breaking Barriers, Building Bonds

  The 3rd Annual Justice for George 2023: Breaking Barriers, Building Bonds was hosted and celebrated on May 27th and 28th. Over the last two years, Memorialize the Movement (MTM) has hosted our annual Justice for George exhibition to commemorate George Floyd’s life and legacy by providing a space for healing and creativity for our Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other communities of color. Justice for George 2021 and 2022 were large-scale exhibitions that took place in Phelps Field Park with many elements including live muralists, musical performances, and a resource fair of community organizations.

  This year’s event took place over two days, featuring a mural display of the panels in our stewardship, a panel discussion of artists discussing the intersection of mental health and art, holistic health professionals demonstrating their respective practices, musical performances, wellness vendors, as well as our monthly Paint to Express (PTE) workshop and an interactive mural painting. It's estimated that 300+ individuals cycled through the exhibit over the duration of the two days.

  We strive to continue to honor the legacy of Mr. Floyd and the artists who created the murals by using this year's event to highlight the holistic healing resources that our community needs.

• Justice for George: Commemorate. Cultivate. Celebrate.

  The theme of this year’s Justice for George (JFG) event is “Radical Joy.” Our hope is to encourage community care, connections, and healing, while continuing to grieve, mourn, and fight for a better future for Black communities. Justice for George strategically balances remembrance of the uprising with forward-looking hope through facilitating the creation of new murals. Through art-making, exhibits, and gatherings, our Black community has found a safe space year after year in JFG to share stories of pain, community care, and transformation. By creating a space for constant dialogue and adaptation, MTM works to honor the Minneapolis uprising of 2020 as part of the collective identity and history in Minnesota.

  As we reflected on five years since George Floyd’s murder, we encouraged people to not forget, and to continue to act. 

  The 5th annual Justice for George event featured many new artistic mediums. In addition to the large-scale exhibition of the murals, live music and dance performances, and live mural paintings. This year we incorporated new activities over the course of five days leading up to the main event on May 25th, 2025. The activities lineup included a play reading, summer kickback, and walking tour.

• 
  Justice for George: Messages from the People

  On May 22nd, 2021; Justice for George: Messages From The People was an opportunity for visitors to experience the stories being told through this art. The mourning of our loss, the acknowledgment of our failures and successes, and our hopes for the future and a more equitable Minneapolis. The MTM team hoped that through the exhibit the people of Minneapolis would heal together, learn from one another, and create understanding that leads to positive change. A survey conducted by the Urban Art Mapping Department at the university of St Thomas with over 70 responses proved that they accomplished their goal. 

  The exhibit consisted of 200 of the 1,000 plywood panels that were collected since 2020, 16 BIPOC artists that they paid to paint live murals, 4 live performances from Black musicians, 8 local BIPOC owned community organizations, and hundreds of visitors who came to heal and build community through the mural art.

• 
  Justice for George: Our Strength, Our Story

  On May 21st of 2022, the Justice for George: Our Strength, Our Story Exhibit was held. The 2nd Annual Justice for George Exhibit focused on the strength in our community over the past two years through a global pandemic and a revived Civil Rights Movement. Memorialize The Movement hosted the event free of charge for the community to attend and gather in solidarity of one another.

  This year there were 200+ panels activated for the public in a similar fashion as the previous year. The main difference between these two Exhibits was the inclusion of horizontal murals in addition to the many vertical murals that have been activated over the past few years. Previously, Memorialize The Movement wasn't able to activate horizontal murals due to not having the structural capacity to do so. But, this year, with the help of local woodshops, Memorialize the Movement was able to build the structures needed to successfully exhibit horizontal pieces from our collection.

  With the 200+ panels, horizontal mural inclusions, Memorialize The Movement also commissioned 9 local artists to paint live at the exhibit. Space was also provided for the local Girl Scouts troop to paint two of their own murals. There were 5 local musical artists that performed at the exhibit as well. And finally, there were 10+ community organizations and vendors made up of BIPOC people that offered resources to BIPOC folks and other individuals from underprivileged communities.

• 
  Justice for George: Space as Canvas

  The Justice for George 2024 (May 24th and 25th) event centered around Memorialize the Movement's (MTM) relocation to South Minneapolis, a neighborhood irrevocably changed by the murder of George Floyd. After his murder in 2020, we watched our city become a canvas for creative expression, through art, protest, community building, and advocacy. Over the last four years, we have taken on the stewardship of those stories, through the preservation, conserving, and the activation of the plywood murals. The theme, "Space as Canvas," encouraged us to think about the ways in which we as a community use physical and abstract space to express ourselves creatively. With the help of our South Minneapolis community members and local muralists, we painted a mural on our new physical space as an embodiment of this concept. ​

  Like the previous year, this event took place over a two day period, something that we'll continue to implement in the next event as well. The first day focused on being together in a more intimate setting with documentarians and local community members discussing and reflecting on 2020 and where we are now. The second day was bustling, festival style, with food and artist vendors, live performances, mural painting, and outdoor exhibition, and our first open house. Both days focused on bringing the community together and showcasing the creativity of our neighbors.

• 
  Minneapolis Protest Murals: Carleton College

  On October 14th, Memorialize the Movement hosted an event acknowledging the birth of George Perry Floyd and reflecting on his death and its impact on the nation. The event featured the Minneapolis Protest Murals exhibition, which explored the Minneapolis Uprising through the perspectives of the community members who created the murals and the emotions that inspired the artwork.

  Prior to the exhibition opening, Memorialize the Movement Founder and Executive Director Leesa Kelly delivered a talk examining the relationship between art and democracy during the Minneapolis Uprising of 2020. Her presentation discussed the radical nature of preserving the protest murals through a community-centered approach that empowered the artists and residents connected to the work to determine how the artifacts should be preserved and shared.

  The event also highlighted Memorialize the Movement’s ongoing work as a living archive dedicated to collecting, preserving, and activating the plywood protest murals created during and after the 2020 uprising.

• Minneapolis Protest Murals: Watermill Center

  As part of the larger Crossroads festival curated by renowned artist Carrie Mae Weems at the Watermill Center in New York, Minneapolis Protest Murals was presented as a large-scale outdoor exhibition commemorating George Floyd and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. The exhibition featured 150 plywood protest murals created during the Minneapolis Uprising of 2020, making it the largest presentation of the murals outside of Minneapolis at that time.

  The murals were preserved and presented by Memorialize the Movement, a living archive founded by Minneapolis activist and curator Leesa Kelly, which has collected and conserved hundreds of protest boards created in response to the murder of George Floyd. Curated by Leesa Kelly and Noah Khoshbin in collaboration with House of Trees, the exhibition highlighted the emotional, political, and artistic responses of Minneapolis residents during the uprising.

  Presented within the broader context of Crossroads, the exhibition connected local acts of protest and remembrance in Minneapolis to larger global conversations around race, justice, memory, and public art. Through the preservation and exhibition of the murals, Memorialize the Movement sought to keep public dialogue surrounding George Floyd’s murder and its aftermath active while providing Minneapolis artists and community members with a national platform beyond their city.

• Minnesota Art Explosion

  Franconia Sculpture Park and Memorialize the Movement collaborated to present Minnesota Art Explosion, an exhibition and community-centered event celebrating Minnesota artists and the creative communities that emerged during the Minneapolis Uprising of 2020. The exhibition highlighted protest murals created during the uprising, recognizing the courage and artistic contributions of individuals who used public art to call for justice, peace, and solidarity during a period of collective trauma and unrest.

  Hosted at Franconia Sculpture Park, the exhibition created space for artists, arts organizations, and community members from across Minnesota to gather, connect, and engage through an immersive arts experience. The opening celebration featured live performances by Mayyadda Papaya The Loving Light, Speak Free, and Melayz, as well as spiritual healing practices facilitated by Soul. The event also included an artist spotlight honoring Lissa Karpeh and emphasized the importance of preserving protest art as part of Minnesota’s cultural and social history.

  Through this collaboration, Memorialize the Movement continued its mission of preserving and activating the plywood murals created during the uprising while expanding opportunities for artists and communities to engage with the work beyond traditional exhibition spaces.