WAKPA Triennial Art Festival

12 Weeks to Experience New Public Art Commissions, Other Projects, and Exhibitions by Minnesota-based Artists Installed in a Network of Locations across Saint Paul and Minneapolis
 

In summer 2023, Public Art Saint Paul (PASP) and its organizational partners will present the inaugural Wakpa Triennial Art Festival in the Twin Cities. Newly commissioned artworks by more than 30 Minnesota artists, coupled with public programs and tours featuring additional artists, writers, performers, and cultural commentators, will lead viewers to places they may not have known before or will see anew through the eyes of artists. The Wakpa Triennial will offer opportunities for friends and families to experience and to learn more about people, place, neighborhood, land, water, plants, and how these are related.

This multi-site, dispersed exhibition of public space projects and gallery-based installations represents an unprecedented opportunity for Minnesota artists to take center stage, with the majority of artwork created by artists of color living in the Twin Cities. Imagine visiting locations around the Twin Cities, from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis, neighborhoods on Lake Street and Franklin Avenue, University Avenue and East 7th Street, and along the Mississippi River itself. Triennial art sites provide a network of connections to place and people, a webbed pathway that invites audiences to build mutuality with artists, history, land, culture, and each other.

The Wakpa Triennial Art Festival adopts the Dakota word “wakpa,” meaning “river” for its name. The Mississippi, the precious source of all life and settlement in this region, is called in Dakota “Wakpa Tanka” for Great River, and “Haha Wakpa,” for “River of Waterfalls.” The Minnesota River—Mnisota Wakpa--flows into the Mississippi at Bdote, a sacred site for the Dakota, whose ancestral and contemporary homelands the Twin Cities inhabit.

Triennial Theme: Network of Mutuality
 How are we related? How do we overcome divisions? How can art help us to consider our mutuality with each other so that everyone thrives? Who is included in our networks of mutuality? How can art help us to envision new futures?

Wakpa Triennial presents art that explores broadly resonant concepts from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to consider these questions at a pivotal moment in the histories of St. Paul and Minneapolis as we rebuild and revive our communities, places, and spirits, with artists leading the conversations.

MPLSART.COM Highlighted WAKPA Stops

• Public Functionary
• Minnesota Marine Art Museum
• Dreamsong
• All My Relations Arts
• Second Shift Studio Space