Xena Goldman’s Be Kind to All Kinds Mural

Image: Street view of Be Kind to All Kinds on E 55th Street in Minneapolis. Photo by Xena Goldman.

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The moment I found out about the new mural titled Be Kind to All Kinds on E 55th Street in Minneapolis, I rushed to learn about it. For quite some time I have been looking to write on art dedicated to animals, to non-human subjects. It could very well mean I have been craving to take a respite from the centrality given to human subjects in the art world. 

Xena Goldman is a local muralist, painter, illustrator, and educator who has painted and collaborated on over twenty indoor and outdoor murals in the United States, Colombia, and Cuba. Back in April, Goldman responded to a call for artists by the Minnesota non-profit Compassionate Action for Animals. CAA’s primary goal is to promote empathy in action for farm animals. The large-scale public mural project was established as a collaboration between volunteers at CAA and the local bakery Vegan East. Goldman was selected as the artist to create the mural for the west-east facing wall of Vegan East in the Nokomis neighborhood of south Minneapolis. 

 

Image: Xena Goldman painting Be Kind to All Kinds on E 55th Street in Minneapolis. Photo by Amanda Pardi.

"Everyone is on their own journey of aligning values and identities with actions,” says Goldman. Goldman is not vegetarian nor vegan due to many dietary restrictions which get in the way of that option, but she is “someone who believes that life inherently has value, that all living beings are interconnected, and that our future prosperity depends on this acknowledgment.” Her growing consciousness about the animal rights movement (flashback to Australian philosopher Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation) is enough for her and millions of others out there (including me) to believe firmly that discrimination and abuse towards non-human animals needs to end. 

The mural on the wall of our beloved local bakery Vegan East does something beautiful and straightforward, it encourages viewers to reflect on the relationship between humans and other animals, sparking connection and compassion. It also, I argue, makes a case for ending with the double standard that only dogs and cats matter by also depicting a cow and a pig, and even a bee. 

Goldman’s approach to making the mural started by projecting her design directly onto the wall. She worked first on the underpainting using opposite colors so the top coat colors really pop. She is an artist who prioritizes mural longevity through careful wall preparation, high-quality materials, experienced application, and protective varnishing. The mural was completed in two weeks with the help of the community starting on September 21st and ending on October 7th. A ribbon cutting ceremony took place on October 10th with the presence of Goldman where a group photo was taken. 

 

Image: Vegan East Mural 73, photo by Gray Duck Studios.

Compassionate Action for Animals hopes that the mural will serve as a pipeline connecting the general public to the animal movement (there is a QR code on the mural that leads to CAA's website, including animal stories associated with each animal featured in the mural and ways to take action).◼︎ 

At the present time, Goldman is developing educational comics and working towards getting certified as a neurodiversity coach, studies she began out of an interest in supporting those often left behind. Follow Xena Goldman on IG @xenastuff. Last but not least, do not miss checking out the delicious daily menu of Vegan East here.

 

Image: Illustration by Xena Goldman (2023).

HISTORICAL NOTE:

At the core of the historical suppression and mistreatment of animals is human supremacy and systems of human oppression like speciesism, widely problematic systemic beliefs that share traits with racism, sexism, and homophobia. In the preface of the 2023 revised edition of Singer’s Animal Liberation, Israeli historian and public intellectual Yuval Noah Harari states that the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms, “is perhaps the worst crime in history” (“Why Yuval Noah Harari thinks modern society is on the brink of collapse,” Lives Well Lived podcast, June 6, 2024). A remarkable statement by a historian, according to Singer, historians usually focus on humans.

 

In 2025 and part of this year, the exhibition WHY LOOK AT ANIMALS? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Athens (ΕΜΣΤ), Greece, explored “how animals, once deeply integrated into human life, have become increasingly distanced, objectified and commodified.” Likewise, the 2023-2024 exhibition Why Look at Animals? at the Weisman Art Museum questioned how humans overlooked the independent lives of animals and exploited them while romanticizing animals as cute companions and symbols of innocence. Both of these exhibitions took their title and premise from critic John Berger’s 1977 essay “Why Look at Animals”.