We are excited to announce “Everyday Ways” - a we made with artist/organizer Mankwe Ndosi.

“For the first time, the full scope of Mankwe Ndosi’s artistic life is captured in a single video—her activism, her art, her unique and beautiful outlook on life.” - Andrea Swensson

Four months in the making so that you can spend eight minutes with her today. Please share!

Hi everyone! Its Mai the new HECUA intern at Works Progress.  

Today I got to tag along with Shanai and went out to meet Ariah Fine, a community organizer from the Cleveland Neighborhood Association to test out video and recording for the upcoming project: Street Forum.

Street Forum is a project that is still in the works in collaboration with the Cleveland Neighorhood Association. We are going to be outside in North Minneapolis in the Cleveland neighborhood by the bus stops presenting a short video about some information and thoughts on the new light rail being built through that area. We will be asking how the current transit system is affecting them and their opinions on the new transit system through video recording. With this, we will be able to capture the voices and visions of the community and present it to official public meetings about transportation. Since these meetings often take place at times and places that are inconvenient or inaccessible to the community residents, this project will be a great way to make voices heard. 

Stay tuned for more updates! I am excited to see how this will all unfold. 

We’re excited to introduce Mai Vang, our new HECUA intern this semester. Mai will be helping out on a couple of projects, including a series of short documentaries about the 2012 Corridors of Opportunity grantees. She’ll also be posting updates here, on Twitter and in our Facebook group. Get to know Mai: Mai Vang is a student at Augsburg College majoring in Sociology. This semester she is enrolled in HECUA’s Inequality In America: Policy, Community, and the Politics of Empowerment program. This led her to an internship at Works Progress. She is passionate about social justice and equality and wants to change the world someday. Mai was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota and has a huge passion for photography. She loves helping people and hopes to incorporate her photography into her social justice work so that others can see the stories that aren’t always visible. After college, Mai would like to find a job in helping the community around her and the people who live in it. In the meantime, she is focused on HECUA and this internship so that she can be inspired and gain the necessary skills to be able to serve others around her. Check out Mai’s photography, including pics from some field work today, on her photo blog. The HECUA program that Mai is a part of is similar to the one that Shanai took in her last year of school at the University of Minnesota in 2005. The experience was highly influential for her so we’re happy to be able and give back to the program by hosting a student. Welcome to the studio, Mai!
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We’re excited to introduce Mai Vang, our new HECUA intern this semester. Mai will be helping out on a couple of projects, including a series of short documentaries about the 2012 Corridors of Opportunity grantees. She’ll also be posting updates here, on Twitter and in our Facebook group.

Get to know Mai:

Mai Vang is a student at Augsburg College majoring in Sociology. This semester she is enrolled in HECUA’s Inequality In America: Policy, Community, and the Politics of Empowerment program. This led her to an internship at Works Progress. She is passionate about social justice and equality and wants to change the world someday.

Mai was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota and has a huge passion for photography. She loves helping people and hopes to incorporate her photography into her social justice work so that others can see the stories that aren’t always visible.

After college, Mai would like to find a job in helping the community around her and the people who live in it. In the meantime, she is focused on HECUA and this internship so that she can be inspired and gain the necessary skills to be able to serve others around her.

Check out Mai’s photography, including pics from some field work today, on her photo blog.

The HECUA program that Mai is a part of is similar to the one that Shanai took in her last year of school at the University of Minnesota in 2005. The experience was highly influential for her so we’re happy to be able and give back to the program by hosting a student.

Welcome to the studio, Mai!

Happy New Year from Works Progress Studio!

As 2013 kicks off, we find ourselves reflecting on all of the amazing collaborators, new friends, big ideas and hard work that made 2012 such a great year here at Works Progress Studio. Rather than write it all down in a long (probably boring) newsletter, we thought we’d share a few highlights in a short (hopefully entertaining) video newsletter.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your creative energy with us over the past 12 months. We’re looking forward to another great year!

halfletterpress: Currently available on sale in our webstore: Collective Actions: Audience Recollections from the First Five Years, 1976-1981 An artist group that even our long-running group Temporary Services knew absolutely nothing about! We are happy to carry this new book from Soberscove that unearths some interesting Soviet group work in a well-designed and beautifully printed book, as is typical for this Chicago-based press. “Active in Moscow since 1976, the Collective Actions group played a key role in the development of conceptual and performance art in the Soviet Union. Inspired by the work of John Cage, the organizers invited audiences to take part in minimal, outdoor actions in fields and forests on the edges of the city that explored the nature of the aesthetic event. These spatio-temporal events directed viewers’ attention to the pure contemplation of their own perceptions, and over time, the actions produced masses of documentary material. Collective Actions: Audience Recollections from the First Five Years, 1976-1981 concentrates on the early period of field actions when the problems of documentation—-how to capture and convey ephemeral action to non-participants—-were just beginning to be considered.”
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halfletterpress:

Currently available on sale in our webstore: Collective Actions: Audience Recollections from the First Five Years, 1976-1981

An artist group that even our long-running group Temporary Services knew absolutely nothing about! We are happy to carry this new book from Soberscove that unearths some interesting Soviet group work in a well-designed and beautifully printed book, as is typical for this Chicago-based press.

“Active in Moscow since 1976, the Collective Actions group played a key role in the development of conceptual and performance art in the Soviet Union. Inspired by the work of John Cage, the organizers invited audiences to take part in minimal, outdoor actions in fields and forests on the edges of the city that explored the nature of the aesthetic event. These spatio-temporal events directed viewers’ attention to the pure contemplation of their own perceptions, and over time, the actions produced masses of documentary material. Collective Actions: Audience Recollections from the First Five Years, 1976-1981 concentrates on the early period of field actions when the problems of documentation—-how to capture and convey ephemeral action to non-participants—-were just beginning to be considered.”

As we mentioned earlier this year, we’re partnering with Northside Residents Redevelopment Council (NRRC) on neighborhood engagement project funded by CURA and their Neighborhood Partnership Initiative. The project involves the design and build of a neighborhood engagement cart, which we’ve imagined as an open source platform for face-to-face interaction among neighborhood organizers, artists and residents living in NRRC’s program area and residents of North Minneapolis.

Once the cart is built it’ll be deployed at neighborhood events, in city parks, at bus stops and on street corners. Neighborhood organizers, artists and residents will use the cart and its materials - everything from art supplies to a PA system and projector - to create interactive programs that encourage conversation and connection among neighbors, and which help to spread the word about resources and opportunities available through NRRC as a neighborhood organization.

After a slow start we’re finally beginning to design and build the cart. Today Colin and our project collaborator Brandon Brown, a northside builder and engineer, went to Discount Steel to research options for materials that we’ll use to build a frame for the cart. Brandon is a welder and inventor of his own motorized and bicycle-powered vehicles. He’ll be working with Colin and designer Patrick McKennen to create the cart.

We’ll post updates here as the project progresses. We plan to unveil the cart and its related programs with NRRC this spring.