The Smell of Earth | Seitu K. Jones

Jones, who describes his practice as “tending the soil of community,” is also a master gardener, food justice advocate, historian, and archivist. He leverages his role as an artist to connect with and support neighbors, scholars, artists, and culture bearers, while prioritizing knowledge-sharing and legacy preservation for African American artists. For Jones, nourishment is rooted in relationship-building, collaboration, placemaking, and a desire to ensure thriving futures for his community: “I am to not only support the community where my work lives, but to channel the love and contributions of the community itself,” he writes. “It is my intention to continue to honor the history of a place and capture the present moment to foster a rich civic life for all.”

Jones is well-known for his over 40 large-scale public art projects that shape the Twin Cities landscape, as well as his communal Community Meal events encouraging dialogue among neighbors to bridge understanding. The Smell of Earth is a deep exploration of his less-examined studio work, shown alongside objects and ephemera from his extensive archive documenting his experience as a Black artist in Minnesota. Through drawings, paintings, sculptures, and design, Jones honors African American culture, symbolism, history, and ancestral knowledge. True to his preference for collaboration within the community, Jones worked closely with curators Ego Ahaiwe Sowinksi and Alexandra Nicome to select work for this milestone show, the first major solo museum exhibition of his work. Ahaiwe Sowinski and Nicome situate Jones’s practice through medium, connecting content and process in the artist’s work.

The curators explain: “Sifting through loose earth, artist Seitu Jones finds all the material he needs to sustain his artistic practice. Perhaps best known for his environmentally focused public art and advocacy in the space of food justice, his studio practice takes a simpler approach to Earth’s matter. Jones explores the relationship between Midwestern landscapes and his body, family history, and distant ancestors through charcoal, pigment, and clay. The Smell of Earth gathers work from across Jones’s practice, with a focus on the subject and material that most consistently captures his attention: the land and its creative bounty.”