Colin interviews Leesa Kelly and Amira McLendon of Memorialize the Movement about their experiences as Black activists working to preserve art from the 2020 uprising in Minneapolis. Kelly and McLendon offer insight into the racial politics of art preservation.
Links and References:
Memorialize the Movement: https://www.memorializethemovement.com/
Art and Artifact: Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517918989/art-and-artifact/
Preservation for the People Podcast: https://blackartconservators.com/podcast/
Monument Lab’s National Monument Audit: https://monumentlab.com/audit
Jenn M. Jackson: “The Militancy of (Black) Memory: Theorizing Black-Led Movements as Disjunctures in the Normativity of White Ignorance.” https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-9825933
Cover Photo by Ted Timmons, Edited by Colin McLaughlin-Alcock
Creative Commons License: https://tinyurl.com/y9dj772p
Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/night-drift/pastel
License code: WOMBEWKJI6OOODDO
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In a previous episode, Mariel and I discussed
how Trump and his white supremacist space have
rallied around Confederate statues,
and how Trump has endorsed a monument building
program,
which aims to extend his authoritarian and white
supremacist rule.
One of the obstacles to racist justice in
this country is a landscape of monuments and
memory which celebrate white supremacy.
(00:21):
According to the National Monument audit produced by
Monument Lab, our national monument landscape is overwhelmingly
white and male. Of the 50 most celebrated
figures,
half of them owned slaves.
Only six are not white.
This is our everyday public landscape.
Yet, Mariel and I have also discussed a
rich history of counter memorialization.
(00:42):
During the mass uprisings of twenty twenty, which
responded to the police murder of George Floyd,
many of these racist statues were toppled and
replaced.
Beyond that, the uprising of twenty twenty was
a moment of cultural effervescence,
a flourishing of public art that celebrated Floyd
and black life,
proposed new collective visions of what America could
be, and gave voice to widespread rage against
(01:04):
the continued devaluing of black life in contemporary
America.
While his creative flourishing included performance, dance, music,
and other art forms,
in the heat of 2020, graffiti murals were
the icon of the movement.
These pervasive murals, with their messages of joy,
rage, and hope, were an emotional resource for
protesters.
They were a site of contestation.
(01:26):
And in broader American life, they were a
constant visible reminder of the strength of the
protest
and the righteousness of its demands.
Unfortunately,
over the past five years, many of these
murals have been taken down or painted over.
Municipalities like DC and Salt Lake have worked
to erase major massive public mural projects, which
(01:46):
they previously endorsed.
While there are still a few George Floyd
murals and Black Lives Matter flags in my
neighborhood in Philadelphia
and more in Minneapolis,
This general erasure facilitates what the scholar Jen
Jackson describes
as a reassertion of white ignorance, public forgetting,
and a return to white supremacist hegemony.
With that in mind, we are excited to
(02:07):
be joined today by Lisa Kelly and Amira
McClendon,
two black activists who are leaders of Memorialize
the Movement,
a black feminist organization in Minneapolis that worked
to protect and preserve murals from the twenty
twenty uprising.
To date, they've preserved a collection of more
than 500 of these murals.
They activate this collection
with public exhibitions,
(02:27):
and activities that advance the cause of racial
justice and abolition.
I know Lisa and Amira from my own
time living in Minneapolis where we became colleagues
and friends. I'm so excited to have them
both on the show.
So
I'm Colin McLaughlin Alcock. My cohost Mariel Grushko
is off today, but we'll be back for
our next episode.
And you're listening to Bad Art, a podcast
(02:48):
about the politics of art in the twenty
first century.
Lisa and Amira, welcome.
Thank you.
We're happy to be here. So to start
(03:08):
us off, I'd like to ask you both
to introduce yourself.
Lisa, if you could take the lead, and
then, Amira, follow in.
Yeah. My name is Lisa Kelly. I'm the
founder and executive director
of Memorialize the Movement.
MTM is a living archive,
created during the heat of the uprising.
Our goal, our mission
is to essentially collect, preserve, and activate the
(03:32):
plywood murals,
that we've collected over the last five years.
And we do so, with our house space
here in South Minneapolis,
where we house the archive
and where we, do preservation work and some
workshops.
And then we exhibit the murals
annually throughout the year.
(03:53):
This was our last year, but for the
last five years, we hosted an annual event
called Justice for George where we would commemorate,
each year of his passing,
by bringing murals out to the community for
a large scale outdoor exhibition,
brought people together for healing, reflecting, and learning
(04:13):
through sort of the murals that were created
in 2020 and also the witnessing and creation
of new murals.
Yeah.
And, I'm Amira McLendon.
I started with MTM in 2022
as as an intern,
which is how which was the capacity that
(04:34):
I first met Colin in,
I've had
multiple different roles,
board member, volunteer,
other things. And now, currently, I serve as
collections manager
and curator now as well.
Yeah. Lisa kinda covered all the
MTM stuff, but that's a bit about me.
(04:56):
Lisa, if you don't mind, would you tell
us a little bit about
your inspiration for starting MTM and and why
it was important to you
to collect and save these murals?
Yeah. So
as you know, Colin,
my decision to begin collecting the murals was
not so much inspired as it was a
trauma response. We were
inspired as it was a trauma response.
(05:19):
We were
in a really dark period
in time at that point, and the murals
gave me hope. And
and
they helped name emotions that I wasn't able
to recognize at the time, and they made
me feel less alone. And so it was
just as simple as
me not wanting to see them disappear
(05:40):
and not being able to process the implications
of their disappearance anymore.
So I began collecting as a way
to
sort of
I I hesitate to use the word save
because I don't consider myself a savior by
any means.
But
to save them from destruction
or
(06:02):
or exploitation.
And so that's what kind of led me
to begin collecting organically
in 2020.
But as we collected
and we garnered support volunteers,
things like that,
it became more about preserving this sort of
visual history, this visual record of the uprighting
(06:22):
and less about my own trauma and experience
that I was having at the time.
The
murals that I collected
from businesses and storefronts in 2020 were originally
plywood panels that owners put up in order
to protect
their storefronts that had glass on them from
being broken into,
(06:43):
vandalized,
etcetera. And so business owners
boarded up their windows and doors with plywood,
and then community members
kinda saw that plywood as a blank slate,
as an opportunity
to freely express themselves in true vulnerability and
bravery.
Because a lot of the messages that they
left were very deep and rooted in the
(07:06):
trauma that they were experiencing
at the time,
deep in philosophical questions to the universe about
our place as black and brown people in
society,
and
beautiful messages of support or solidarity,
allyship,
calls for justice, and things like that. And
so what I collected
was plywood panels themselves that the murals were
(07:28):
painted on. And a mural
can make up anything from one to 14
panels.
So as you can imagine, these murals are
very large.
Average mural size is about four panels It
is 16 feet wide, eight foot high.
(07:49):
So the murals themselves are huge
and fairly heavy. They're created most of them
are created
on what we call OSB.
And OSB is,
wood chips that have been pressed and glued
together over and over again to create this
really dense board. And it's usually about a
quarter of an inch thick, but we have
(08:09):
some that are very dense, very heavy, and
they're more like an, half an inch to
an inch thick, which make them really difficult
to handle.
But yeah. So the plywood itself is is
very much a living material.
It's made of wood, and although the wood
has been chopped up and,
like, grinded and pressed and glued, it's still
(08:31):
very much organic material that is susceptible to
heat and cool
and,
water and light.
It can still harbor life. And we have
some murals that when we collected them, they
had life on them that had to be
killed in order to bring it into our
warehouse. And so it's really interesting working with
(08:52):
the plywood.
One of the things that you talked about
in one of our first meetings
was
how as you started collecting the murals, you
began to notice differences between them. Some of
those differences be reflecting the different places that
they're from and the different people who painted
them. Could you talk a little bit about
some of the diversity of the murals? Yes.
So one of the things that we noticed
(09:14):
as we were collecting is that depending on
the neighborhood,
the mural messaging and imagery was very
different. And so, for example,
in the Lake Street neighborhood that leads into
South Minneapolis,
in those area where it's more concentrated people
of color, you have our raw messages.
Things that speak to our black lives, things
(09:35):
that speak to police accountability,
crude messages like fuck 12 and and,
prosecute the police and and more like accountability
forward messages too. Like,
silent betrayal
or,
you know, if you are a real ally,
then you show up in this way. Like,
things, messages that hold people accountable
(09:58):
for even their complacency
in the system and not and not showing
up in ways that would help protect us
better.
And then in terms of imagery,
it's a lot more
more raw, more real images, less
pretty, less conventionally pretty artistic images,
and more gritty,
(10:20):
imagery for sure. Like portraits of George Floyd,
portraits of people hanging, portraits of other people
who have died before,
images of the city burning, and things like
that. Whereas if you go to, like, Northeast,
for example,
which is historically a more white neighborhood. It's
been gentrified years and years ago, and so
(10:40):
the population there is mostly hipsters,
frankly.
You get a lot of really beautiful,
murals that are colorful and bright and speak
to peace and love and solidarity.
Or even if they are saying things like
justice for George,
or say their names
(11:00):
and things like that. They're saying them in
very bright pastel colors
with hearts and flowers
and, and things like that, which are which
is just it's really weird and bizarre and
and ironic, but it also shows you the
understanding that people have of this uprising and
how it affected them.
With the artists from South Minneapolis and some
(11:21):
parts of the city that are more predominantly
black, you see a lot of reds, a
lot of blacks,
a lot of darker colors, muted colors. But
in those wider neighborhoods, like I said, you
see a lot of pastels and bright colors.
You see a lot of flowers, a lot
of hearts,
a lot of, like,
animated figures that are more cartoonish than they
(11:41):
are realistic, and it's really interesting.
You wanna add on that? Yeah. I guess
I'm thinking
about what you were saying about
how some of the murals can hint to
demographics
of the areas that they might have come
from. I'm also thinking about, like, some of
the murals that we have that might have
came from Saint Paul, where there's a lot
(12:04):
of Asian
businesses and things. I think about that one
mural that we have
that
says
stop Asian hate,
like, what else
going on? There was overlap
in the story that people were trying to
tell.
And I think, like, with that mural,
(12:24):
like, that whole building was covered in murals.
And it's a mix of there's the stop
hate mural, but then there's also a bunch
of murals around it that are also
speaking to the movement that happened after George
Floyd was killed as well. Mhmm.
I think the points that you both raised
are are so important.
Highlighting,
(12:44):
one, the the different demographics and the diversity
of the murals, I think, in the present,
you know, five years later,
one of the things that
I think is forgotten is some of that
diversity. And as people try to make claims
about what the uprising was or what it
meant, they tend to flatten out all of
the different people who participated and who had
(13:04):
different ideas of what it meant and perhaps
different claims.
Mhmm. And especially as you note that
if some of these murals are
less raw, you know, both aesthetically, so and
and in terms of message, so easier to
process.
For an audience, they can filter out some
of that
rawer sentiment, some of the bigger anger at
(13:27):
the police, some of the bigger demands,
and and make the history of the movement
appear more palatable
to certain audiences.
I think it's really interesting that you said
that because that is exactly what my fear
was since the beginning. And when it came
to
after collecting, like, how we decided to activate
and display the art, it was really important
(13:48):
to me that we not filter out those
angry raw messages.
And instead, we highlight them
because
more even so than the pretty murals,
the raw murals tell the truth
of the uprising
and the feelings that people had, the fear,
the anger,
the the desperate need for accountability in this
(14:09):
scenario. And
so it's been really important
to us throughout the last five years of
doing this work that we don't let the
movement become,
or the memory of the movement become these
pretty images with the pastel colors and the
hearts and the flowers and the messages of
solidarity, but that we show both,
(14:31):
in contradiction to one another,
in support of one another so that people
get a very, like, truthful, honest, and well
rounded image of what the the uprising will
look like in 2020.
Yeah. Thanks.
I remember at your twenty twenty three Justice
for George exhibition, you had a really incredible
panel of three black artists who spoke about
what motivated them at the time.
(14:53):
And and one of them, a black woman,
Lisa Carpe,
talked about how she made a number of
murals
while leading groups of children who she knew
to paint their own murals. And she felt
very passionate about this. But at some point,
she discovered that in the same neighborhood where
she was painting,
there were white artists who were getting paid
commissions to make murals about George Floyd.
(15:14):
And so there's a lot of racial imbalance
in who got paid to make these murals,
who made them for free, who made them
as vandalism,
and these sorts of questions come out in
the collection itself.
Yeah. It's really interesting
when we started to discover that as well
because especially in the Uptown neighborhood, some of
the areas of Northeast and things like that,
(15:36):
there were people, white people in particular, who
were paid to create really pretty murals to
and they were paid by the business
or building owner to do that as a
way to
kind of differ deter their building or their
storefront from being, broken into or burned down.
They're like, oh, if we put a mural
(15:57):
on our building, then it's less likely to
get burned down because we'll have a message
of solidarity. So it it puts not only
into question the fact that they should have
been reaching out to black artists and paying
them if that was the case.
I don't think there's anything inherently bad about
them as permissioning a mural to be put
on their building, but it was the way
that they went about it. And then also
(16:18):
this this question of how authentic
or how performative is that message then. Did
you just put that up there justice for
George black lives matter so that your place
didn't get burned down or broken into, or
did you do it because you actually believe
it? And then a lot of those places
as well,
like I said, these are the places where
the messages are gonna be really mild. The
(16:39):
murals are gonna be really aesthetically pleasing. The
colors are gonna be really bright or pastel
y. And so it kind of, like,
counteracted the movement in some ways.
And you still see that in Uptown because
there were a lot of buildings
there are a lot of buildings in Uptown
that are still abandoned, that that were never
able to reopen and recover from the pandemic.
(17:02):
And
what ended up happening in this like Calhoun
Mall area of
Hennepin and Lake Street in Uptown is that
some of those building owners recommissioned
white artists
to paint over the original protest art that
was there. And so those murals
from 2020
that were on those mural on those panels
(17:24):
originally are just completely gone, washed away now
by depictions of winter or spring or beautiful
white women's faces and flowers and other random
shit.
And we don't get that back.
And
they seem to think that that's okay just
to coop that movement and decide, oh, we're
just going to do what we want with
(17:45):
it. While you have artists like Lissa who
was leading Liberian American students around town creating
murals for free using resources from her own
pockets,
and then
her counterparts, white artists, were being paid to
make performative messages at the same time. So
it's really disheartening and disappointing.
And when I learned that in 2020,
(18:06):
I made a decision.
Then Amir was saying I was sort of
building a philosophy without realizing it to prioritize
murals that we knew came from black and
brown artists.
But going a step further, when we hosted
our first Justice for George event in 2021,
I wanted to make sure
that there was a place for black and
brown artists to express themselves freely in the
(18:29):
way that a lot of them didn't get
to do in 2020. So for every Justice
for George event that we had, we set
aside funding to commission black and brown artists
to paint live during the event on blank
panels that we provided for them. We paid
them very competitively,
and we provided all of the materials. We
even built structures specifically made for them and
(18:49):
creating space for black and brown artists and
creatives to express themselves while also
being free from censorship
and paid competitively.
So we're really proud of that.
So, I think that's a good good transition
point. Lisa, you've talked to me before
(19:12):
about
your concerns
of well, both the importance of
ensuring that black people have control over this
archive and how it's presented, but also your
concerns about what would happen
if this archive were instead to put into
a museum run by white curators or otherwise
curated differently.
One of your concerns is is not even
(19:33):
sinister. Right? But that a person with less
sensitivity to the diversity of the murals might
come in and see all these pastels
racial politics of
of of the racial politics of of representation.
(19:54):
You've highlighted several others in our past conversations.
Are things that stand out to you particularly
important or difficult
about
being black activists and archivists
working in this space?
Yes.
It's really it's really,
cool that you asked this question because this
is something that Amira and I have been
talking about extensively this year
(20:17):
in particular.
Like, what are the challenges that we face
and how can we
build some sort of
infrastructure or foundation or institution
to offset some of these challenges and empower
our people
to be more efficient in doing this work,
more effective and more efficient in doing this
(20:37):
work.
In the catalog that we published last year,
Art and Artifacts Murals from Minneapolis Uprising.
I talk about in my essay where I'm
talking about how I founded the organization,
there was a moment in December 2020 when
I had put together a collective of people
from different fields and backgrounds
(20:58):
all to help me plan justice for George.
And I told them, like, it's going to
take archiving.
It's gonna take photographing the murals. It's gonna
take curation. It's gonna take building new structures
so that we can display them outdoors. And
so I brought together all these different people
who worked in museum fields, who worked at
architecture firms, designers, artists,
(21:19):
all these people. And in the first meeting
that we were having,
where we were starting to plan the event,
I looked around and realized that I was
the only black person there. And that's not
to say that there were no people from
those fields who were black, like, at all
in The States,
but I just hadn't found them at that
point. And it was really disheartening because
(21:40):
I knew what I was doing and why
I was doing it. But looking around the
room and seeing myself as a minority when
I was actually the leader
of that group, of that meeting, just really,
like, made my spirits flop.
And and that's sort of where my secret
mission came into play to bring more black
and brown people into this work, black people
in particular into this work.
(22:01):
And it became a goal of mine to
expand
and increase the number of Black people doing
conservation and preservation work in Minnesota and in
this country. And so
that's one of the biggest challenges that we've
noticed. So since then, I've been looking,
We've been trying to find them. And in
Minnesota, they are very, very few and far
(22:23):
between. And it it also needs to be
said that in Minnesota, most of them are
grassroots.
Most of them are not, like, professionally or
formally or traditionally trained.
Most of them have decided to just do
this work on their own, do their own
ex other experiences in their past and their
lives. And so they may be artists
or they may be archivists or professors
(22:45):
or things like that who have just decided
that they're going to jump into preservation
and start becoming story keepers and storytellers,
which is really cool.
Thinking about
what Lisa said and then thinking about
2028
when she started MTM.
Another thing that we've been talking about
(23:06):
as we've
especially as we started to, like,
really think about
how we want this archive
to look as a whole
is how
proactive
and unprecedented
it was for Lisa to
have the foresight
to see that these murals were something worth,
(23:31):
preserving and holding on to.
Because something that happens a lot with
particularly
black art and just black history in general
is that we
in the time when, like, something happens, there
isn't anybody
to
do the work to save it usually.
(23:53):
Like, it usually becomes a thought and a
curiosity
that people have
ten, twenty, thirty, forty years
from the time
when the thing actually happened.
So
in doing this work and trying to
find
(24:14):
uplift, and
train new people to do this work. Mhmm.
Part of it is so that
should anything like this happen again, which unfortunately,
it probably will. Mhmm.
There are people that are ready to
see the value
in what's happening and know that this is
(24:35):
something that we need to
preserve and hold on to
so that we don't have to do the
work of digging later on. And who are
with with the tools to spring into action
and do it. Right.
Because, like, another thing that I think about,
which
you'll you'll love Leslie Guy's essay
in the catalog when you get the chance
(24:57):
to read it.
She talked about the
she tossed it out a particular mural that
was it was here in Minnesota. Mhmm. It
was here in Minnesota,
I believe, in the nineties,
early two thousands.
It was a mural created by a bunch
of local,
(25:18):
mostly black artists.
A notable one that we work with right
now is Sethu Jones.
He had a very pivotal role in creating
this mural.
And it was up, I think, for a
good ten years, and it was created by
black artists here in the community.
And
one
(25:38):
day, like how you mentioned before,
different cities
deciding that it was time to cover up
the murals and artwork that they
so passionately
backed when it was first being made.
The same thing happened with this mural, that
Leslie Guy talks about in her essay. It
was up
(25:58):
for
like,
I think over ten years
And eventually, the city decided it was time
for it to come down.
And
there was
there was nobody at the time that was
equipped to
save it or
figure out something
to
preserve it.
(26:20):
So it was destroyed, and there's nothing left
at that mural except for a chunk of
concrete that
I think is in a museum somewhere.
So this work is so crucial to preventing
stuff like that
from continuing
to happen. Mhmm.
And we're in a time crunch
(26:42):
because it's happening as we speak. Yes.
I think it's so important that you said
continue to happen,
you know, recognizing that erasure is a constant
process and something that needs to be fought
against.
I mean, you know, clearly, in Black Lives
Matter protests in 2020, but also in longer
phases of time, things have come and gone
that
(27:03):
briefly felt permanent.
And now now they're not there.
I think in wider protest movements, also, you
see this dynamic. And I had a student,
Lisa, you met them,
who curated student art and who discovered that,
oh, there's this archive of student art from
2020, which has disappeared.
And so the the history of the protest
in the school itself is vanishing,
(27:24):
and trying to preserve that becomes a a
real challenge because it disappears really fast.
Mhmm.
Jeez.
Just thinking about that,
the fact that a school would try and
suppress
something like that is shocking to me.
I mean, I don't even know that it's
so much deliberately depressed
(27:45):
suppressed so much as, like, it got filed
away. And, you know, it's it's it's
it requires, like, active work to keep it
present. You know? Mhmm. Right. Which is the
problem with museums.
Mhmm.
And you know
that I can go on and on and
on about
the problem with museums,
but it's so disappointing. And that's why our
(28:08):
archive is
alive.
I I feel like
I've been saying this all year too. I
proudly sit on my high horse and and
turn my nose up at museums because
I have no formal training. I have no
traditional training.
And this but this seems like this seems
like a basic understanding
(28:30):
of how preservation should work.
Like,
every piece
gets activated.
And with every exhibit that we do, we're
always thinking about how we can activate those
pieces that haven't been activated previously.
Or if a new piece comes in, even
if it hasn't gone through the entire process
(28:51):
that we have for archiving,
we still find a way to work it
in and activate it because
we're, we're not bearing
art here. We're not bearing artifacts here. You
know,
the goal of this archive
is activation.
Collect, preserve,
activate. That is in the title,
like in our little tagline.
(29:12):
And that is what we do. And when
you know
how many
artifacts museums keep stuck in the basement because
it's such a hassle
to to bring them back up or
to recall them
or to install them or whatever. It's really
shocking and disgusting.
And I think
(29:33):
MTM,
our goal is to actively
counteract that. Like,
for everything that museums do wrong, we do
right.
And and it's not even a matter of
trying to be the opposition to the museums.
We're just trying to be the model of
what good preservation
looks like.
And if we don't show that to our
(29:54):
people, then they won't know because
they are raised to think that museums are
are great spaces that hold history
and that they are education centers. But
we show them what it can look like
when education really is free and accessible, when
art and artifacts are free and accessible, when
everything gets
(30:14):
gets activated and information is not suppressed
or buried or filed away, but readily accessible.
Like, even our mistakes,
we display proudly because they helped us to
learn how to do better for the next
time for the future.
And
it's just a shame
(30:35):
that our education centers, our museums, and our
historical societies and and spaces like that in
this country
don't understand that.
Yeah.
In mentioning the
activating, I mean, I just I think it's
important to say some of what that means,
which is that you're you, one, have these
(30:57):
these murals collected, but you're, two, bringing them
out into public spaces and showing them off.
You're and also inviting community members to participate
in in activities that dialogue with the collection,
whether it's invitations to paint their own murals,
small or large,
or invitations to engage in collaborative projects
(31:17):
at sites where you have exhibitions and also
bringing them participate in wider community activities
as part of what it means to be
living in in Minneapolis
at this time or in the Twin Cities
at this time.
So, yeah, I don't know if you wanna
speak to that, but I just wanna highlight,
like, what it means to activate. It's actively
out there participating with people, and people are
(31:38):
engaging it directly in different kinds of ways
in which you might see at a museum.
Outside of our annual exhibit, we partner with
schools,
and universities
to exhibit the murals on their campuses.
And then we've had some other
opportunities to exhibit. Like, we exhibited murals at
Franconia Sculpture Park.
And so we've done some smaller, like, community
(32:01):
based exhibits, which have only been, like, a
few panels here and there
just to, like, show up to a community
partners event that that was kind of in
line with the work that we do. But
then we also do Paint to Express workshops,
which were which are a monthly,
kind of free come as you are paint
workshop where people can
creatively express themselves.
(32:22):
And then we have interactive mural paintings,
which are a really cool way for community
members and, like,
event attendees to
kind of create simulating the experience of creating
a mural, like, in 2020 because they'll paint
an interactive piece on,
like, usually an eight by eight
(32:42):
kind of,
mural face, which is is very interesting.
The pieces
very rarely come out
unscathed
because kids get involved,
which makes it, like,
look really cool in the end and definitely,
(33:05):
I think, speaks to a community aspect of
2020
when people were creating murals. Because
you can tell everybody wanted to put their
mark on these pieces and they did not
hold back and they were very enthusiastic in
doing so.
Uh-oh.
The last one that we did for Juneteenth
(33:27):
that sold the South Side, we had to
hide the paint and the brushes
because the piece was completely covered from head
to toe and they were still trying to
add to it. Like, new people would come
in. I just wanna paint. I just wanna
write my name.
It's like,
there's no full. There's no more surface. Look,
you guys have painted on every surface.
(33:48):
But people get really enthusiastic about those. And
then,
yeah, outside of that, we do participate in
community events
and workshops and things like that all over
the Twin Cities, mainly with our community partners,
and that can be in the form of
a speaking engagement and interactive mural pinging, just
tabling, just showing up and volunteering.
(34:09):
We're really active in the community
in support of our community partners and the
artists that we work with. And so
just like as an org, we show up
for a lot of things
so that people know that we're not just
here
for the murals, and we don't just expect
them to show up when we have something
going on. We really build a community. And
(34:30):
it's it's not transactional,
but it's, like, really symbiotic in a cool
way.
And it ensures that anytime we have an
event, it's well attended because we show up
to everything.
On that note about people participating,
I was just thinking back about some of
your murals, and there are some really exciting
ones in the collection that are also participatory.
(34:51):
So it's not just you saying, oh, let's
participate.
There are people who painted murals that have,
like, you know, boxes on them saying add
your thoughts, add your
demands, and and there are quite a few
of those that you have. So it was
also part of the the moment itself.
Yeah. Like, the interactive mural idea is not
one that we started, but that people in
2020 started. Some of the best murals in
(35:14):
this collection are community murals, where a neighborhood
association
or a well known business or something kind
of created an outline and a prompt
and then left out supplies for,
like, community to come and sort of fill
it in and make it really beautiful.
But one that you don't know about, Colin,
that we actually collected
(35:35):
last year
is one of I it's for me, it's
one of my favorites. It's super cool because
it's an interactive
kind of, like,
immersive mural.
It's, like, four or five panels,
and it says it starts with me in
graffiti lettering. And then in the center
(35:55):
of the, like, mural, there's a spot and
it says selfie spot.
And so, like, the piece,
like, invites you to come and take a
selfie in the center of the mural behind
this, like, backdrop that says it starts with
me. And that's the first one of its
kind that we have in the collection is,
like, an interactive piece that invites selfies. Because
as you
(36:16):
know, I do not allow selfies during our
exhibits. How did that Very,
very much against taking selfies. But having this
mural out on display has given community a
space
as like, a designated space where it's okay
to take a mural with or take a
selfie with the with the mural, and
they really enjoy that piece a lot.
(36:39):
Would you would you tell the audience why
you don't approve of selfies?
Yeah. At our exhibits, it's really important
that people are not blindly consuming
the material present in the uprising. Like, it's
less
about wanting to control what they can and
can't do and more about wanting to create
(37:01):
a space where they are actually
being
present and mindful and taking in what is
there and the messages behind it, which can
often be very heavy.
And not just like, oh, I'm here. I
posted this on social media and now I'm
leaving. Like, I don't want it to be
for spectacle
or exploitation.
(37:23):
Yeah. And like Lisa was saying, these murals,
the
content
of a lot of them is very
heavy,
and
it's not to be used as a backdrop
for your selfie of the day.
Like Your profile pic.
Right. And then thinking about just, like,
(37:44):
respecting
the
depictions
of a lot of
the people that are on a lot of
these murals, whether we it's Jorah Floyd
or Brianna Taylor or whoever else Mhmm. Has
been lost to racialized violence.
I'm not really sure why anybody would want
to pose with a little, like, peace sign
(38:06):
in front of George Floyd's face.
But should they ever think that they want
to, we explicitly tell them not to. Yes.
Because
and that's at the end of the day,
it's just not respectful
Exactly.
To
let alone the art, but to the people
it's depicting.
Yeah. And I also wanna say, like, you
(38:27):
guys have both been out of the game
for a while. Love that for you. But
as someone who is unfortunately
still on dating apps,
you would be surprised at the number of
white people
who
are
I'm trying to put this delicately.
You would be surprised at the number of
(38:47):
white people
on dating apps who will post images of
themselves
at protests
or with, like,
Black things
to signify
to Black people that they are okay with
dating them or that they're an ally,
and things like that. And it's actually really
(39:08):
disgusting. Like I see a lot of depictions
of like white men at protests holding up
signs, and he's took a really professional photo
of himself. And then he posted it on
the dating app, and then he profile says
BLM. And it's like, that's not helping, sir.
And actually, I'm swiping left because why do
you feel like this is something that you
(39:29):
thought you could put on here to attract
black people?
So it's not just like even like yes.
There's this disrespect, but also the performative element
of it. Right? Oh, look at me. I'm
an ally. I'm taking a picture next to
this black thing. And it's and they don't
really realize it, but it oftentimes has the
opposite effect because it's clearly performative.
(39:51):
If you were really there and you were
really there to show up for your people,
then why did you need to take a
picture and post it and prove that you
were there? You know?
And I think I also just wanna say
and I think it's very different though because
we do have a lot of times where
people will post a picture
of a piece that really meant something to
(40:12):
them without it being a selfie. Like, they'll
just post a piece of the a picture
of the piece itself,
and then they'll tag us in, like, an
Instagram or Facebook post where they're talking about
how much it meant to them to be
there. And you know that the context then
is different.
So
the context, it all comes back to the
context.
(40:33):
And then to just to add one more
thing, We've had a lot of instances
before
and recently
with
folks
taking the time to try and center themselves
at
events or exhibitions or whatever it may be.
It's also about just not
centering yourself
(40:54):
in an exhibition that's meant to talk about
something as serious as the uprising in twenty
twenty. Yes.
Like, don't make it about you.
Yeah.
So I have one more big question,
and that is we talked a little bit
about
(41:15):
your work to build a black capacity
in the preservation space. And we didn't talk
exact we talked about how you realize that
when you were doing the work, you were
surrounded
by a white professional space.
And we didn't really talk about this, but
you've worked to bring in
photographers and others who are black to participate
(41:36):
in the work to build up a black
community that's doing a lot of the work.
But you've also
been,
working nationally
as part of national groups of black conservators
to try
to build up a national community
of of black activists doing this kind of
work. Could you talk about what this means
on
(41:56):
the national scene?
Yeah. So I will clarify that we haven't
been the ones to create, but we have
been,
participating in these groups and we've become members
of some of these groups. And one of
them is the Black Art Conservators Group,
which was created
in 2020.
It's a collective
(42:16):
of black conservators from around the country
who were sort of all experiencing
both, like, the blowback from George Floyd's murder
and the uprising,
but also
experiencing
various forms of racism and microaggression
in their own like
PWI spaces.
And they just, they created a space where
(42:37):
they can come together
and discuss those frustrations,
but also to share ideas,
to provide
a space where they can network and create
new opportunities.
They share like job postings.
And then they actually also started a podcast
where they both talk about they talk about
the intersection
(42:57):
between conservation
and activism.
And it's really cool because sometimes the topics
of conversation on the podcast
deal with
like defining conservation
and preservation
and very technical things. And then sometimes it's
speaking about
the field from the perspective of black people.
(43:19):
But yeah. So it's called preservation of the
people. It's super cool. Definitely give it a
listen, but
that has become a resource for us. And
then we've also as we've kinda shifted,
not away from conservation, but to broad broadening
what we are and what we do, we
also have found the Black Memory Workers Group,
which, Holland, we were supposed to be in
(43:41):
that meeting at 02:00.
But
the Black Memory Workers group is a similar
group of black people from around the country
who came together, but a lot of those
people come from an archivist background.
And, similar to the Black Art Conservators,
the Black Memory Workers Group,
(44:01):
they their their skills and expertise
span of a lot of various different forms
of, like, archiving and archival materials that they
handle. And they meet monthly as well in
a similar fashion to kinda create a space
for community building, networking, and support,
but also where we can share resources. And
what's really cool about that actually, quick plug,
(44:22):
is that since we started going to those,
meetings, they had a fellowship come up that
Amira applied to and is actually a part
of now. It was a paid fellowship,
that she can tell you more about.
Yeah.
The found one of the founders
of or the founder of Black Memory Workers
is one of the
(44:44):
founders
of
this group called Archiving the Black Web.
It's an initiative
to
get more
black folks into
web archiving,
which is something very new to both me
and Lisa.
I also,
for the record, don't have a background in
(45:08):
any of the stuff that we're doing besides
having a studio art degree. So I can
maybe speak to, like, the technique,
but the technique doesn't really matter that much
in
this case of what we're doing with the
murals.
So
I, like,
as we've been going along learning about how
(45:28):
to,
properly
construct this
concept of an archive that we have
and make sure that we're taking care of
things properly and all these sorts of things.
I've also been learning
alongside Lisa as we go.
And they have
this
(45:48):
WARC
school that they started,
which is the fellowship. It just stands for
web archiving,
where they're teaching,
I believe, there's 20 to 22
fellows.
Mhmm. They're teaching us
the history of the black web
all the way up to teaching us how
(46:09):
to make our own
web archive, where we have to have a
practicum
at the end of the fellowship
and produce some sort of
full web archive or the start of one
by the end of the course
in which
by the end of it, we have a
whole brand new
(46:31):
toolkit
for archiving in a way that right now
is, like, pretty revolutionary.
This is still really new that people are
still,
like, fleshing out. And so it's
cool to, like, have a course on
people that have been doing it, teaching us
their methods.
(46:52):
But at the end of the day, like,
we kinda get to come up with our
own methodology
too,
and they encourage that.
So it's a really,
really cool and interesting
thing that we came about from being a
part of all these different
national
black groups that are doing all this amazing
(47:13):
archiving and conservation
work. Mhmm.
That's so important
and and exciting.
It's just thinking about I mean, much like
we're talking about how art disappears,
the Internet
is also much more ephemeral
than people give it credit for.
And I think that many white people at
least don't appreciate
(47:33):
is that there is a difference
or there are different experiences of the Internet.
And, you know, if black Twitter is its
own sphere of Twitter, there's also a black
Internet experience that is really distinct. And to
save that and preserve that as a thing
that matters,
I think that's a really important thing to
do.
Mhmm. Alright. So those those are my big
(47:53):
questions. I think what do you
so if listeners come and are listening to
a podcast about the politics of art in
the twenty first century,
what are things that you would want them
to take away?
What do we want them to take away?
Abolish museums.
(48:15):
Yeah. Alright.
I will say that or, I guess, eloquently.
Museum institutions
are antiquated,
racist,
and have a colonial history that no longer
works for the current context of our social
structure.
They need to be abolished and rebuilt in
a way
that
(48:35):
that keep in mind or no. That include
include and honor that include honor and respect
the rich cultural histories
that have evolved at this country,
over the last four hundred years since the
indigenous people were murdered and their land was
stolen.
(48:56):
Black people were brought here as enslaved
people and then
given freedom
to create lives of our own. And since
Mexican people were driven south of the border
and then returned as immigrants and then all
of the other rich immigrant histories because The
US has had their,
hand and their missiles and everybody else's business
(49:18):
over the last four hundred years as well.
So all of those stories, all of that
context, all of that history
is important to the context
of who America is as a country, who
The United States is as a country,
and to
continue
to operate museum structures as they are, museum
systems as they are, where we prioritize
(49:41):
and uplift only the story of white colonial
history is ridiculous and wildly inaccurate.
And it makes it impossible for us to
move forward or learn, and it creates a
cycle where we remain ignorant and uneducated.
And that is why you should abolish museums.
Oh, man. I got so wrapped up in
the house of thinking.
I guess my takeaway,
(50:02):
I'll say this specifically
to
particularly
any black listeners.
If this resonated with you, like
find a space,
whether it's here or if you're not in
Minnesota,
somewhere around you where there are people doing
archiving or preservation work. Because there is, like,
(50:25):
community archiving and ways for you to do
archiving on your own,
take it up. Like this is something that
you can do
clearly without having a background in it.
Like this is something that you can figure
out as you go and you can
develop your own theories and philosophies
(50:46):
on how you do that.
But I think
besides that, like, the baseline
is whether you're
aiming
to shape collective memory
or aiming to just
preserve your own personal history.
There are spaces and ways for you to
(51:07):
do that.
Well, thank you. I love both of those
takeaways.
And Very different. If someone
they are very different. I was gonna add
if someone is listening and, like, oh, what
can I do?
You know, memorialize the movement's website is up
there, and you can see some of the
work that they've done.
Also, their catalog
(51:28):
what's the title?
Art and Artifact, Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising.
Art and Artifact, Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising.
It has some beautiful photographs and more evidence
of their work. So examples that you can
look at and places to get involved. Is
there anything else that either of you wanna
hype or get people to participate in?
Donate.
(51:49):
Yeah. Yeah. Donate. Donate lots of money.
Tell your institution to. Tell your
institution to donate. Yeah. Institution to reach out
to us and bring us to your university
or your college.
Mhmm.
Do all of those things. Lisa mentioned at
the beginning how heavy these murals are. They're
big. They take up lots of space. They
(52:10):
fall apart. They're very difficult to preserve.
And so it's a lot of work, and
it is expensive. So if you are capable
of supporting that, you should. It's a really
worthy cause,
led by really great people. So,
thanks so much for joining us today. It's
a real pleasure talking to both of you,
and great seeing you both again.
(52:30):
Yes. Thank you for having us, Colin.
Thanks, everyone. I'm Colin McLaughlin Alcock. Our guests
today were Lisa Kelly and Amira McLendon of
Memorialize the Movement, and you've been listening to
Bad Art, a podcast about the politics of
art in the twenty first century. Thanks so
much for listening.
Please like, follow, subscribe, and we hope you'll
continue to listen as we go forward. Thanks.
(52:57):
Bye.
In a previous episode, Mariel and I discussed
how Trump and his white supremacist space have
rallied around Confederate statues,
and how Trump has endorsed a monument building
program,
which aims to extend his authoritarian and white
supremacist rule.
One of the obstacles to racist justice in
this country is a landscape of monuments and
memory which celebrate white supremacy.
(00:21):
According to the National Monument audit produced by
Monument Lab, our national monument landscape is overwhelmingly
white and male. Of the 50 most celebrated
figures,
half of them owned slaves.
Only six are not white.
This is our everyday public landscape.
Yet, Mariel and I have also discussed a
rich history of counter memorialization.
(00:42):
During the mass uprisings of twenty twenty, which
responded to the police murder of George Floyd,
many of these racist statues were toppled and
replaced.
Beyond that, the uprising of twenty twenty was
a moment of cultural effervescence,
a flourishing of public art that celebrated Floyd
and black life,
proposed new collective visions of what America could
be, and gave voice to widespread rage against
(01:04):
the continued devaluing of black life in contemporary
America.
While his creative flourishing included performance, dance, music,
and other art forms,
in the heat of 2020, graffiti murals were
the icon of the movement.
These pervasive murals, with their messages of joy,
rage, and hope, were an emotional resource for
protesters.
They were a site of contestation.
(01:26):
And in broader American life, they were a
constant visible reminder of the strength of the
protest
and the righteousness of its demands.
Unfortunately,
over the past five years, many of these
murals have been taken down or painted over.
Municipalities like DC and Salt Lake have worked
to erase major massive public mural projects, which
(01:46):
they previously endorsed.
While there are still a few George Floyd
murals and Black Lives Matter flags in my
neighborhood in Philadelphia
and more in Minneapolis,
This general erasure facilitates what the scholar Jen
Jackson describes
as a reassertion of white ignorance, public forgetting,
and a return to white supremacist hegemony.
With that in mind, we are excited to
(02:07):
be joined today by Lisa Kelly and Amira
McClendon,
two black activists who are leaders of Memorialize
the Movement,
a black feminist organization in Minneapolis that worked
to protect and preserve murals from the twenty
twenty uprising.
To date, they've preserved a collection of more
than 500 of these murals.
They activate this collection
with public exhibitions,
(02:27):
and activities that advance the cause of racial
justice and abolition.
I know Lisa and Amira from my own
time living in Minneapolis where we became colleagues
and friends. I'm so excited to have them
both on the show.
So
I'm Colin McLaughlin Alcock. My cohost Mariel Grushko
is off today, but we'll be back for
our next episode.
And you're listening to Bad Art, a podcast
(02:48):
about the politics of art in the twenty
first century.
Lisa and Amira, welcome.
Thank you.
We're happy to be here. So to start
(03:08):
us off, I'd like to ask you both
to introduce yourself.
Lisa, if you could take the lead, and
then, Amira, follow in.
Yeah. My name is Lisa Kelly. I'm the
founder and executive director
of Memorialize the Movement.
MTM is a living archive,
created during the heat of the uprising.
Our goal, our mission
is to essentially collect, preserve, and activate the
(03:32):
plywood murals,
that we've collected over the last five years.
And we do so, with our house space
here in South Minneapolis,
where we house the archive
and where we, do preservation work and some
workshops.
And then we exhibit the murals
annually throughout the year.
(03:53):
This was our last year, but for the
last five years, we hosted an annual event
called Justice for George where we would commemorate,
each year of his passing,
by bringing murals out to the community for
a large scale outdoor exhibition,
brought people together for healing, reflecting, and learning
(04:13):
through sort of the murals that were created
in 2020 and also the witnessing and creation
of new murals.
Yeah.
And, I'm Amira McLendon.
I started with MTM in 2022
as as an intern,
which is how which was the capacity that
(04:34):
I first met Colin in,
I've had
multiple different roles,
board member, volunteer,
other things. And now, currently, I serve as
collections manager
and curator now as well.
Yeah. Lisa kinda covered all the
MTM stuff, but that's a bit about me.
(04:56):
Lisa, if you don't mind, would you tell
us a little bit about
your inspiration for starting MTM and and why
it was important to you
to collect and save these murals?
Yeah. So
as you know, Colin,
my decision to begin collecting the murals was
not so much inspired as it was a
trauma response. We were
inspired as it was a trauma response.
(05:19):
We were
in a really dark period
in time at that point, and the murals
gave me hope. And
and
they helped name emotions that I wasn't able
to recognize at the time, and they made
me feel less alone. And so it was
just as simple as
me not wanting to see them disappear
(05:40):
and not being able to process the implications
of their disappearance anymore.
So I began collecting as a way
to
sort of
I I hesitate to use the word save
because I don't consider myself a savior by
any means.
But
to save them from destruction
or
(06:02):
or exploitation.
And so that's what kind of led me
to begin collecting organically
in 2020.
But as we collected
and we garnered support volunteers,
things like that,
it became more about preserving this sort of
visual history, this visual record of the uprighting
(06:22):
and less about my own trauma and experience
that I was having at the time.
The
murals that I collected
from businesses and storefronts in 2020 were originally
plywood panels that owners put up in order
to protect
their storefronts that had glass on them from
being broken into,
(06:43):
vandalized,
etcetera. And so business owners
boarded up their windows and doors with plywood,
and then community members
kinda saw that plywood as a blank slate,
as an opportunity
to freely express themselves in true vulnerability and
bravery.
Because a lot of the messages that they
left were very deep and rooted in the
(07:06):
trauma that they were experiencing
at the time,
deep in philosophical questions to the universe about
our place as black and brown people in
society,
and
beautiful messages of support or solidarity,
allyship,
calls for justice, and things like that. And
so what I collected
was plywood panels themselves that the murals were
(07:28):
painted on. And a mural
can make up anything from one to 14
panels.
So as you can imagine, these murals are
very large.
Average mural size is about four panels It
is 16 feet wide, eight foot high.
(07:49):
So the murals themselves are huge
and fairly heavy. They're created most of them
are created
on what we call OSB.
And OSB is,
wood chips that have been pressed and glued
together over and over again to create this
really dense board. And it's usually about a
quarter of an inch thick, but we have
(08:09):
some that are very dense, very heavy, and
they're more like an, half an inch to
an inch thick, which make them really difficult
to handle.
But yeah. So the plywood itself is is
very much a living material.
It's made of wood, and although the wood
has been chopped up and,
like, grinded and pressed and glued, it's still
(08:31):
very much organic material that is susceptible to
heat and cool
and,
water and light.
It can still harbor life. And we have
some murals that when we collected them, they
had life on them that had to be
killed in order to bring it into our
warehouse. And so it's really interesting working with
(08:52):
the plywood.
One of the things that you talked about
in one of our first meetings
was
how as you started collecting the murals, you
began to notice differences between them. Some of
those differences be reflecting the different places that
they're from and the different people who painted
them. Could you talk a little bit about
some of the diversity of the murals? Yes.
So one of the things that we noticed
(09:14):
as we were collecting is that depending on
the neighborhood,
the mural messaging and imagery was very
different. And so, for example,
in the Lake Street neighborhood that leads into
South Minneapolis,
in those area where it's more concentrated people
of color, you have our raw messages.
Things that speak to our black lives, things
(09:35):
that speak to police accountability,
crude messages like fuck 12 and and,
prosecute the police and and more like accountability
forward messages too. Like,
silent betrayal
or,
you know, if you are a real ally,
then you show up in this way. Like,
things, messages that hold people accountable
(09:58):
for even their complacency
in the system and not and not showing
up in ways that would help protect us
better.
And then in terms of imagery,
it's a lot more
more raw, more real images, less
pretty, less conventionally pretty artistic images,
and more gritty,
(10:20):
imagery for sure. Like portraits of George Floyd,
portraits of people hanging, portraits of other people
who have died before,
images of the city burning, and things like
that. Whereas if you go to, like, Northeast,
for example,
which is historically a more white neighborhood. It's
been gentrified years and years ago, and so
(10:40):
the population there is mostly hipsters,
frankly.
You get a lot of really beautiful,
murals that are colorful and bright and speak
to peace and love and solidarity.
Or even if they are saying things like
justice for George,
or say their names
(11:00):
and things like that. They're saying them in
very bright pastel colors
with hearts and flowers
and, and things like that, which are which
is just it's really weird and bizarre and
and ironic, but it also shows you the
understanding that people have of this uprising and
how it affected them.
With the artists from South Minneapolis and some
(11:21):
parts of the city that are more predominantly
black, you see a lot of reds, a
lot of blacks,
a lot of darker colors, muted colors. But
in those wider neighborhoods, like I said, you
see a lot of pastels and bright colors.
You see a lot of flowers, a lot
of hearts,
a lot of, like,
animated figures that are more cartoonish than they
(11:41):
are realistic, and it's really interesting.
You wanna add on that? Yeah. I guess
I'm thinking
about what you were saying about
how some of the murals can hint to
demographics
of the areas that they might have come
from. I'm also thinking about, like, some of
the murals that we have that might have
came from Saint Paul, where there's a lot
(12:04):
of Asian
businesses and things. I think about that one
mural that we have
that
says
stop Asian hate,
like, what else
going on? There was overlap
in the story that people were trying to
tell.
And I think, like, with that mural,
(12:24):
like, that whole building was covered in murals.
And it's a mix of there's the stop
hate mural, but then there's also a bunch
of murals around it that are also
speaking to the movement that happened after George
Floyd was killed as well. Mhmm.
I think the points that you both raised
are are so important.
Highlighting,
(12:44):
one, the the different demographics and the diversity
of the murals, I think, in the present,
you know, five years later,
one of the things that
I think is forgotten is some of that
diversity. And as people try to make claims
about what the uprising was or what it
meant, they tend to flatten out all of
the different people who participated and who had
(13:04):
different ideas of what it meant and perhaps
different claims.
Mhmm. And especially as you note that
if some of these murals are
less raw, you know, both aesthetically, so and
and in terms of message, so easier to
process.
For an audience, they can filter out some
of that
rawer sentiment, some of the bigger anger at
(13:27):
the police, some of the bigger demands,
and and make the history of the movement
appear more palatable
to certain audiences.
I think it's really interesting that you said
that because that is exactly what my fear
was since the beginning. And when it came
to
after collecting, like, how we decided to activate
and display the art, it was really important
(13:48):
to me that we not filter out those
angry raw messages.
And instead, we highlight them
because
more even so than the pretty murals,
the raw murals tell the truth
of the uprising
and the feelings that people had, the fear,
the anger,
the the desperate need for accountability in this
(14:09):
scenario. And
so it's been really important
to us throughout the last five years of
doing this work that we don't let the
movement become,
or the memory of the movement become these
pretty images with the pastel colors and the
hearts and the flowers and the messages of
solidarity, but that we show both,
(14:31):
in contradiction to one another,
in support of one another so that people
get a very, like, truthful, honest, and well
rounded image of what the the uprising will
look like in 2020.
Yeah. Thanks.
I remember at your twenty twenty three Justice
for George exhibition, you had a really incredible
panel of three black artists who spoke about
what motivated them at the time.
(14:53):
And and one of them, a black woman,
Lisa Carpe,
talked about how she made a number of
murals
while leading groups of children who she knew
to paint their own murals. And she felt
very passionate about this. But at some point,
she discovered that in the same neighborhood where
she was painting,
there were white artists who were getting paid
commissions to make murals about George Floyd.
(15:14):
And so there's a lot of racial imbalance
in who got paid to make these murals,
who made them for free, who made them
as vandalism,
and these sorts of questions come out in
the collection itself.
Yeah. It's really interesting
when we started to discover that as well
because especially in the Uptown neighborhood, some of
the areas of Northeast and things like that,
(15:36):
there were people, white people in particular, who
were paid to create really pretty murals to
and they were paid by the business
or building owner to do that as a
way to
kind of differ deter their building or their
storefront from being, broken into or burned down.
They're like, oh, if we put a mural
(15:57):
on our building, then it's less likely to
get burned down because we'll have a message
of solidarity. So it it puts not only
into question the fact that they should have
been reaching out to black artists and paying
them if that was the case.
I don't think there's anything inherently bad about
them as permissioning a mural to be put
on their building, but it was the way
that they went about it. And then also
(16:18):
this this question of how authentic
or how performative is that message then. Did
you just put that up there justice for
George black lives matter so that your place
didn't get burned down or broken into, or
did you do it because you actually believe
it? And then a lot of those places
as well,
like I said, these are the places where
the messages are gonna be really mild. The
(16:39):
murals are gonna be really aesthetically pleasing. The
colors are gonna be really bright or pastel
y. And so it kind of, like,
counteracted the movement in some ways.
And you still see that in Uptown because
there were a lot of buildings
there are a lot of buildings in Uptown
that are still abandoned, that that were never
able to reopen and recover from the pandemic.
(17:02):
And
what ended up happening in this like Calhoun
Mall area of
Hennepin and Lake Street in Uptown is that
some of those building owners recommissioned
white artists
to paint over the original protest art that
was there. And so those murals
from 2020
that were on those mural on those panels
(17:24):
originally are just completely gone, washed away now
by depictions of winter or spring or beautiful
white women's faces and flowers and other random
shit.
And we don't get that back.
And
they seem to think that that's okay just
to coop that movement and decide, oh, we're
just going to do what we want with
(17:45):
it. While you have artists like Lissa who
was leading Liberian American students around town creating
murals for free using resources from her own
pockets,
and then
her counterparts, white artists, were being paid to
make performative messages at the same time. So
it's really disheartening and disappointing.
And when I learned that in 2020,
(18:06):
I made a decision.
Then Amir was saying I was sort of
building a philosophy without realizing it to prioritize
murals that we knew came from black and
brown artists.
But going a step further, when we hosted
our first Justice for George event in 2021,
I wanted to make sure
that there was a place for black and
brown artists to express themselves freely in the
(18:29):
way that a lot of them didn't get
to do in 2020. So for every Justice
for George event that we had, we set
aside funding to commission black and brown artists
to paint live during the event on blank
panels that we provided for them. We paid
them very competitively,
and we provided all of the materials. We
even built structures specifically made for them and
(18:49):
creating space for black and brown artists and
creatives to express themselves while also
being free from censorship
and paid competitively.
So we're really proud of that.
So, I think that's a good good transition
point. Lisa, you've talked to me before
(19:12):
about
your concerns
of well, both the importance of
ensuring that black people have control over this
archive and how it's presented, but also your
concerns about what would happen
if this archive were instead to put into
a museum run by white curators or otherwise
curated differently.
One of your concerns is is not even
(19:33):
sinister. Right? But that a person with less
sensitivity to the diversity of the murals might
come in and see all these pastels
racial politics of
of of the racial politics of of representation.
(19:54):
You've highlighted several others in our past conversations.
Are things that stand out to you particularly
important or difficult
about
being black activists and archivists
working in this space?
Yes.
It's really it's really,
cool that you asked this question because this
is something that Amira and I have been
talking about extensively this year
(20:17):
in particular.
Like, what are the challenges that we face
and how can we
build some sort of
infrastructure or foundation or institution
to offset some of these challenges and empower
our people
to be more efficient in doing this work,
more effective and more efficient in doing this
(20:37):
work.
In the catalog that we published last year,
Art and Artifacts Murals from Minneapolis Uprising.
I talk about in my essay where I'm
talking about how I founded the organization,
there was a moment in December 2020 when
I had put together a collective of people
from different fields and backgrounds
(20:58):
all to help me plan justice for George.
And I told them, like, it's going to
take archiving.
It's gonna take photographing the murals. It's gonna
take curation. It's gonna take building new structures
so that we can display them outdoors. And
so I brought together all these different people
who worked in museum fields, who worked at
architecture firms, designers, artists,
(21:19):
all these people. And in the first meeting
that we were having,
where we were starting to plan the event,
I looked around and realized that I was
the only black person there. And that's not
to say that there were no people from
those fields who were black, like, at all
in The States,
but I just hadn't found them at that
point. And it was really disheartening because
(21:40):
I knew what I was doing and why
I was doing it. But looking around the
room and seeing myself as a minority when
I was actually the leader
of that group, of that meeting, just really,
like, made my spirits flop.
And and that's sort of where my secret
mission came into play to bring more black
and brown people into this work, black people
in particular into this work.
(22:01):
And it became a goal of mine to
expand
and increase the number of Black people doing
conservation and preservation work in Minnesota and in
this country. And so
that's one of the biggest challenges that we've
noticed. So since then, I've been looking,
We've been trying to find them. And in
Minnesota, they are very, very few and far
(22:23):
between. And it it also needs to be
said that in Minnesota, most of them are
grassroots.
Most of them are not, like, professionally or
formally or traditionally trained.
Most of them have decided to just do
this work on their own, do their own
ex other experiences in their past and their
lives. And so they may be artists
or they may be archivists or professors
(22:45):
or things like that who have just decided
that they're going to jump into preservation
and start becoming story keepers and storytellers,
which is really cool.
Thinking about
what Lisa said and then thinking about
2028
when she started MTM.
Another thing that we've been talking about
(23:06):
as we've
especially as we started to, like,
really think about
how we want this archive
to look as a whole
is how
proactive
and unprecedented
it was for Lisa to
have the foresight
to see that these murals were something worth,
(23:31):
preserving and holding on to.
Because something that happens a lot with
particularly
black art and just black history in general
is that we
in the time when, like, something happens, there
isn't anybody
to
do the work to save it usually.
(23:53):
Like, it usually becomes a thought and a
curiosity
that people have
ten, twenty, thirty, forty years
from the time
when the thing actually happened.
So
in doing this work and trying to
find
(24:14):
uplift, and
train new people to do this work. Mhmm.
Part of it is so that
should anything like this happen again, which unfortunately,
it probably will. Mhmm.
There are people that are ready to
see the value
in what's happening and know that this is
(24:35):
something that we need to
preserve and hold on to
so that we don't have to do the
work of digging later on. And who are
with with the tools to spring into action
and do it. Right.
Because, like, another thing that I think about,
which
you'll you'll love Leslie Guy's essay
in the catalog when you get the chance
(24:57):
to read it.
She talked about the
she tossed it out a particular mural that
was it was here in Minnesota. Mhmm. It
was here in Minnesota,
I believe, in the nineties,
early two thousands.
It was a mural created by a bunch
of local,
(25:18):
mostly black artists.
A notable one that we work with right
now is Sethu Jones.
He had a very pivotal role in creating
this mural.
And it was up, I think, for a
good ten years, and it was created by
black artists here in the community.
And
one
(25:38):
day, like how you mentioned before,
different cities
deciding that it was time to cover up
the murals and artwork that they
so passionately
backed when it was first being made.
The same thing happened with this mural, that
Leslie Guy talks about in her essay. It
was up
(25:58):
for
like,
I think over ten years
And eventually, the city decided it was time
for it to come down.
And
there was
there was nobody at the time that was
equipped to
save it or
figure out something
to
preserve it.
(26:20):
So it was destroyed, and there's nothing left
at that mural except for a chunk of
concrete that
I think is in a museum somewhere.
So this work is so crucial to preventing
stuff like that
from continuing
to happen. Mhmm.
And we're in a time crunch
(26:42):
because it's happening as we speak. Yes.
I think it's so important that you said
continue to happen,
you know, recognizing that erasure is a constant
process and something that needs to be fought
against.
I mean, you know, clearly, in Black Lives
Matter protests in 2020, but also in longer
phases of time, things have come and gone
that
(27:03):
briefly felt permanent.
And now now they're not there.
I think in wider protest movements, also, you
see this dynamic. And I had a student,
Lisa, you met them,
who curated student art and who discovered that,
oh, there's this archive of student art from
2020, which has disappeared.
And so the the history of the protest
in the school itself is vanishing,
(27:24):
and trying to preserve that becomes a a
real challenge because it disappears really fast.
Mhmm.
Jeez.
Just thinking about that,
the fact that a school would try and
suppress
something like that is shocking to me.
I mean, I don't even know that it's
so much deliberately depressed
(27:45):
suppressed so much as, like, it got filed
away. And, you know, it's it's it's
it requires, like, active work to keep it
present. You know? Mhmm. Right. Which is the
problem with museums.
Mhmm.
And you know
that I can go on and on and
on about
the problem with museums,
but it's so disappointing. And that's why our
(28:08):
archive is
alive.
I I feel like
I've been saying this all year too. I
proudly sit on my high horse and and
turn my nose up at museums because
I have no formal training. I have no
traditional training.
And this but this seems like this seems
like a basic understanding
(28:30):
of how preservation should work.
Like,
every piece
gets activated.
And with every exhibit that we do, we're
always thinking about how we can activate those
pieces that haven't been activated previously.
Or if a new piece comes in, even
if it hasn't gone through the entire process
(28:51):
that we have for archiving,
we still find a way to work it
in and activate it because
we're, we're not bearing
art here. We're not bearing artifacts here. You
know,
the goal of this archive
is activation.
Collect, preserve,
activate. That is in the title,
like in our little tagline.
(29:12):
And that is what we do. And when
you know
how many
artifacts museums keep stuck in the basement because
it's such a hassle
to to bring them back up or
to recall them
or to install them or whatever. It's really
shocking and disgusting.
And I think
(29:33):
MTM,
our goal is to actively
counteract that. Like,
for everything that museums do wrong, we do
right.
And and it's not even a matter of
trying to be the opposition to the museums.
We're just trying to be the model of
what good preservation
looks like.
And if we don't show that to our
(29:54):
people, then they won't know because
they are raised to think that museums are
are great spaces that hold history
and that they are education centers. But
we show them what it can look like
when education really is free and accessible, when
art and artifacts are free and accessible, when
everything gets
(30:14):
gets activated and information is not suppressed
or buried or filed away, but readily accessible.
Like, even our mistakes,
we display proudly because they helped us to
learn how to do better for the next
time for the future.
And
it's just a shame
(30:35):
that our education centers, our museums, and our
historical societies and and spaces like that in
this country
don't understand that.
Yeah.
In mentioning the
activating, I mean, I just I think it's
important to say some of what that means,
which is that you're you, one, have these
(30:57):
these murals collected, but you're, two, bringing them
out into public spaces and showing them off.
You're and also inviting community members to participate
in in activities that dialogue with the collection,
whether it's invitations to paint their own murals,
small or large,
or invitations to engage in collaborative projects
(31:17):
at sites where you have exhibitions and also
bringing them participate in wider community activities
as part of what it means to be
living in in Minneapolis
at this time or in the Twin Cities
at this time.
So, yeah, I don't know if you wanna
speak to that, but I just wanna highlight,
like, what it means to activate. It's actively
out there participating with people, and people are
(31:38):
engaging it directly in different kinds of ways
in which you might see at a museum.
Outside of our annual exhibit, we partner with
schools,
and universities
to exhibit the murals on their campuses.
And then we've had some other
opportunities to exhibit. Like, we exhibited murals at
Franconia Sculpture Park.
And so we've done some smaller, like, community
(32:01):
based exhibits, which have only been, like, a
few panels here and there
just to, like, show up to a community
partners event that that was kind of in
line with the work that we do. But
then we also do Paint to Express workshops,
which were which are a monthly,
kind of free come as you are paint
workshop where people can
creatively express themselves.
(32:22):
And then we have interactive mural paintings,
which are a really cool way for community
members and, like,
event attendees to
kind of create simulating the experience of creating
a mural, like, in 2020 because they'll paint
an interactive piece on,
like, usually an eight by eight
(32:42):
kind of,
mural face, which is is very interesting.
The pieces
very rarely come out
unscathed
because kids get involved,
which makes it, like,
look really cool in the end and definitely,
(33:05):
I think, speaks to a community aspect of
2020
when people were creating murals. Because
you can tell everybody wanted to put their
mark on these pieces and they did not
hold back and they were very enthusiastic in
doing so.
Uh-oh.
The last one that we did for Juneteenth
(33:27):
that sold the South Side, we had to
hide the paint and the brushes
because the piece was completely covered from head
to toe and they were still trying to
add to it. Like, new people would come
in. I just wanna paint. I just wanna
write my name.
It's like,
there's no full. There's no more surface. Look,
you guys have painted on every surface.
(33:48):
But people get really enthusiastic about those. And
then,
yeah, outside of that, we do participate in
community events
and workshops and things like that all over
the Twin Cities, mainly with our community partners,
and that can be in the form of
a speaking engagement and interactive mural pinging, just
tabling, just showing up and volunteering.
(34:09):
We're really active in the community
in support of our community partners and the
artists that we work with. And so
just like as an org, we show up
for a lot of things
so that people know that we're not just
here
for the murals, and we don't just expect
them to show up when we have something
going on. We really build a community. And
(34:30):
it's it's not transactional,
but it's, like, really symbiotic in a cool
way.
And it ensures that anytime we have an
event, it's well attended because we show up
to everything.
On that note about people participating,
I was just thinking back about some of
your murals, and there are some really exciting
ones in the collection that are also participatory.
(34:51):
So it's not just you saying, oh, let's
participate.
There are people who painted murals that have,
like, you know, boxes on them saying add
your thoughts, add your
demands, and and there are quite a few
of those that you have. So it was
also part of the the moment itself.
Yeah. Like, the interactive mural idea is not
one that we started, but that people in
2020 started. Some of the best murals in
(35:14):
this collection are community murals, where a neighborhood
association
or a well known business or something kind
of created an outline and a prompt
and then left out supplies for,
like, community to come and sort of fill
it in and make it really beautiful.
But one that you don't know about, Colin,
that we actually collected
(35:35):
last year
is one of I it's for me, it's
one of my favorites. It's super cool because
it's an interactive
kind of, like,
immersive mural.
It's, like, four or five panels,
and it says it starts with me in
graffiti lettering. And then in the center
(35:55):
of the, like, mural, there's a spot and
it says selfie spot.
And so, like, the piece,
like, invites you to come and take a
selfie in the center of the mural behind
this, like, backdrop that says it starts with
me. And that's the first one of its
kind that we have in the collection is,
like, an interactive piece that invites selfies. Because
as you
(36:16):
know, I do not allow selfies during our
exhibits. How did that Very,
very much against taking selfies. But having this
mural out on display has given community a
space
as like, a designated space where it's okay
to take a mural with or take a
selfie with the with the mural, and
they really enjoy that piece a lot.
(36:39):
Would you would you tell the audience why
you don't approve of selfies?
Yeah. At our exhibits, it's really important
that people are not blindly consuming
the material present in the uprising. Like, it's
less
about wanting to control what they can and
can't do and more about wanting to create
(37:01):
a space where they are actually
being
present and mindful and taking in what is
there and the messages behind it, which can
often be very heavy.
And not just like, oh, I'm here. I
posted this on social media and now I'm
leaving. Like, I don't want it to be
for spectacle
or exploitation.
(37:23):
Yeah. And like Lisa was saying, these murals,
the
content
of a lot of them is very
heavy,
and
it's not to be used as a backdrop
for your selfie of the day.
Like Your profile pic.
Right. And then thinking about just, like,
(37:44):
respecting
the
depictions
of a lot of
the people that are on a lot of
these murals, whether we it's Jorah Floyd
or Brianna Taylor or whoever else Mhmm. Has
been lost to racialized violence.
I'm not really sure why anybody would want
to pose with a little, like, peace sign
(38:06):
in front of George Floyd's face.
But should they ever think that they want
to, we explicitly tell them not to. Yes.
Because
and that's at the end of the day,
it's just not respectful
Exactly.
To
let alone the art, but to the people
it's depicting.
Yeah. And I also wanna say, like, you
(38:27):
guys have both been out of the game
for a while. Love that for you. But
as someone who is unfortunately
still on dating apps,
you would be surprised at the number of
white people
who
are
I'm trying to put this delicately.
You would be surprised at the number of
(38:47):
white people
on dating apps who will post images of
themselves
at protests
or with, like,
Black things
to signify
to Black people that they are okay with
dating them or that they're an ally,
and things like that. And it's actually really
(39:08):
disgusting. Like I see a lot of depictions
of like white men at protests holding up
signs, and he's took a really professional photo
of himself. And then he posted it on
the dating app, and then he profile says
BLM. And it's like, that's not helping, sir.
And actually, I'm swiping left because why do
you feel like this is something that you
(39:29):
thought you could put on here to attract
black people?
So it's not just like even like yes.
There's this disrespect, but also the performative element
of it. Right? Oh, look at me. I'm
an ally. I'm taking a picture next to
this black thing. And it's and they don't
really realize it, but it oftentimes has the
opposite effect because it's clearly performative.
(39:51):
If you were really there and you were
really there to show up for your people,
then why did you need to take a
picture and post it and prove that you
were there? You know?
And I think I also just wanna say
and I think it's very different though because
we do have a lot of times where
people will post a picture
of a piece that really meant something to
(40:12):
them without it being a selfie. Like, they'll
just post a piece of the a picture
of the piece itself,
and then they'll tag us in, like, an
Instagram or Facebook post where they're talking about
how much it meant to them to be
there. And you know that the context then
is different.
So
the context, it all comes back to the
context.
(40:33):
And then to just to add one more
thing, We've had a lot of instances
before
and recently
with
folks
taking the time to try and center themselves
at
events or exhibitions or whatever it may be.
It's also about just not
centering yourself
(40:54):
in an exhibition that's meant to talk about
something as serious as the uprising in twenty
twenty. Yes.
Like, don't make it about you.
Yeah.
So I have one more big question,
and that is we talked a little bit
about
(41:15):
your work to build a black capacity
in the preservation space. And we didn't talk
exact we talked about how you realize that
when you were doing the work, you were
surrounded
by a white professional space.
And we didn't really talk about this, but
you've worked to bring in
photographers and others who are black to participate
(41:36):
in the work to build up a black
community that's doing a lot of the work.
But you've also
been,
working nationally
as part of national groups of black conservators
to try
to build up a national community
of of black activists doing this kind of
work. Could you talk about what this means
on
(41:56):
the national scene?
Yeah. So I will clarify that we haven't
been the ones to create, but we have
been,
participating in these groups and we've become members
of some of these groups. And one of
them is the Black Art Conservators Group,
which was created
in 2020.
It's a collective
(42:16):
of black conservators from around the country
who were sort of all experiencing
both, like, the blowback from George Floyd's murder
and the uprising,
but also
experiencing
various forms of racism and microaggression
in their own like
PWI spaces.
And they just, they created a space where
(42:37):
they can come together
and discuss those frustrations,
but also to share ideas,
to provide
a space where they can network and create
new opportunities.
They share like job postings.
And then they actually also started a podcast
where they both talk about they talk about
the intersection
(42:57):
between conservation
and activism.
And it's really cool because sometimes the topics
of conversation on the podcast
deal with
like defining conservation
and preservation
and very technical things. And then sometimes it's
speaking about
the field from the perspective of black people.
(43:19):
But yeah. So it's called preservation of the
people. It's super cool. Definitely give it a
listen, but
that has become a resource for us. And
then we've also as we've kinda shifted,
not away from conservation, but to broad broadening
what we are and what we do, we
also have found the Black Memory Workers Group,
which, Holland, we were supposed to be in
(43:41):
that meeting at 02:00.
But
the Black Memory Workers group is a similar
group of black people from around the country
who came together, but a lot of those
people come from an archivist background.
And, similar to the Black Art Conservators,
the Black Memory Workers Group,
(44:01):
they their their skills and expertise
span of a lot of various different forms
of, like, archiving and archival materials that they
handle. And they meet monthly as well in
a similar fashion to kinda create a space
for community building, networking, and support,
but also where we can share resources. And
what's really cool about that actually, quick plug,
(44:22):
is that since we started going to those,
meetings, they had a fellowship come up that
Amira applied to and is actually a part
of now. It was a paid fellowship,
that she can tell you more about.
Yeah.
The found one of the founders
of or the founder of Black Memory Workers
is one of the
(44:44):
founders
of
this group called Archiving the Black Web.
It's an initiative
to
get more
black folks into
web archiving,
which is something very new to both me
and Lisa.
I also,
for the record, don't have a background in
(45:08):
any of the stuff that we're doing besides
having a studio art degree. So I can
maybe speak to, like, the technique,
but the technique doesn't really matter that much
in
this case of what we're doing with the
murals.
So
I, like,
as we've been going along learning about how
(45:28):
to,
properly
construct this
concept of an archive that we have
and make sure that we're taking care of
things properly and all these sorts of things.
I've also been learning
alongside Lisa as we go.
And they have
this
(45:48):
WARC
school that they started,
which is the fellowship. It just stands for
web archiving,
where they're teaching,
I believe, there's 20 to 22
fellows.
Mhmm. They're teaching us
the history of the black web
all the way up to teaching us how
(46:09):
to make our own
web archive, where we have to have a
practicum
at the end of the fellowship
and produce some sort of
full web archive or the start of one
by the end of the course
in which
by the end of it, we have a
whole brand new
(46:31):
toolkit
for archiving in a way that right now
is, like, pretty revolutionary.
This is still really new that people are
still,
like, fleshing out. And so it's
cool to, like, have a course on
people that have been doing it, teaching us
their methods.
(46:52):
But at the end of the day, like,
we kinda get to come up with our
own methodology
too,
and they encourage that.
So it's a really,
really cool and interesting
thing that we came about from being a
part of all these different
national
black groups that are doing all this amazing
(47:13):
archiving and conservation
work. Mhmm.
That's so important
and and exciting.
It's just thinking about I mean, much like
we're talking about how art disappears,
the Internet
is also much more ephemeral
than people give it credit for.
And I think that many white people at
least don't appreciate
(47:33):
is that there is a difference
or there are different experiences of the Internet.
And, you know, if black Twitter is its
own sphere of Twitter, there's also a black
Internet experience that is really distinct. And to
save that and preserve that as a thing
that matters,
I think that's a really important thing to
do.
Mhmm. Alright. So those those are my big
(47:53):
questions. I think what do you
so if listeners come and are listening to
a podcast about the politics of art in
the twenty first century,
what are things that you would want them
to take away?
What do we want them to take away?
Abolish museums.
(48:15):
Yeah. Alright.
I will say that or, I guess, eloquently.
Museum institutions
are antiquated,
racist,
and have a colonial history that no longer
works for the current context of our social
structure.
They need to be abolished and rebuilt in
a way
that
(48:35):
that keep in mind or no. That include
include and honor that include honor and respect
the rich cultural histories
that have evolved at this country,
over the last four hundred years since the
indigenous people were murdered and their land was
stolen.
(48:56):
Black people were brought here as enslaved
people and then
given freedom
to create lives of our own. And since
Mexican people were driven south of the border
and then returned as immigrants and then all
of the other rich immigrant histories because The
US has had their,
hand and their missiles and everybody else's business
(49:18):
over the last four hundred years as well.
So all of those stories, all of that
context, all of that history
is important to the context
of who America is as a country, who
The United States is as a country,
and to
continue
to operate museum structures as they are, museum
systems as they are, where we prioritize
(49:41):
and uplift only the story of white colonial
history is ridiculous and wildly inaccurate.
And it makes it impossible for us to
move forward or learn, and it creates a
cycle where we remain ignorant and uneducated.
And that is why you should abolish museums.
Oh, man. I got so wrapped up in
the house of thinking.
I guess my takeaway,
(50:02):
I'll say this specifically
to
particularly
any black listeners.
If this resonated with you, like
find a space,
whether it's here or if you're not in
Minnesota,
somewhere around you where there are people doing
archiving or preservation work. Because there is, like,
(50:25):
community archiving and ways for you to do
archiving on your own,
take it up. Like this is something that
you can do
clearly without having a background in it.
Like this is something that you can figure
out as you go and you can
develop your own theories and philosophies
(50:46):
on how you do that.
But I think
besides that, like, the baseline
is whether you're
aiming
to shape collective memory
or aiming to just
preserve your own personal history.
There are spaces and ways for you to
(51:07):
do that.
Well, thank you. I love both of those
takeaways.
And Very different. If someone
they are very different. I was gonna add
if someone is listening and, like, oh, what
can I do?
You know, memorialize the movement's website is up
there, and you can see some of the
work that they've done.
Also, their catalog
(51:28):
what's the title?
Art and Artifact, Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising.
Art and Artifact, Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising.
It has some beautiful photographs and more evidence
of their work. So examples that you can
look at and places to get involved. Is
there anything else that either of you wanna
hype or get people to participate in?
Donate.
(51:49):
Yeah. Yeah. Donate. Donate lots of money.
Tell your institution to. Tell your
institution to donate. Yeah. Institution to reach out
to us and bring us to your university
or your college.
Mhmm.
Do all of those things. Lisa mentioned at
the beginning how heavy these murals are. They're
big. They take up lots of space. They
(52:10):
fall apart. They're very difficult to preserve.
And so it's a lot of work, and
it is expensive. So if you are capable
of supporting that, you should. It's a really
worthy cause,
led by really great people. So,
thanks so much for joining us today. It's
a real pleasure talking to both of you,
and great seeing you both again.
(52:30):
Yes. Thank you for having us, Colin.
Thanks, everyone. I'm Colin McLaughlin Alcock. Our guests
today were Lisa Kelly and Amira McLendon of
Memorialize the Movement, and you've been listening to
Bad Art, a podcast about the politics of
art in the twenty first century. Thanks so
much for listening.
Please like, follow, subscribe, and we hope you'll
continue to listen as we go forward. Thanks.
(52:57):
Bye.
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