Minneapolis was covered with artwork after the murder of George Floyd. It took the form of giant murals, paintings on streets, topes, etc. Community members gathered to create visuals to commemorate Floyd and his death. Yet, the question that begged to be asked was: where is all of the profound artwork going to end up?
By: Gabe Schneider, Matt Johnson and Katelyn Vue
Memorialize the Movement is an initiative created by Leesa Kelly to collect and preserve a portion of the art that spawned from Floyd’s murder. Her biggest focus is the plywood signs that businesses used to cover up windows, doors, and any other exposed glass throughout the uprising.
The plywood signs popped up in Minneapolis to protect businesses from rioting and looting, but they soon became more than that. Locals started decorating the boards and they evolved from ugly plywood barriers to beautiful, raw representations of the uprising.
Kelly saw an opportunity to collect and preserve these in a way that photos can’t quite do. And she started almost immediately after the civil unrest. A lot of the pieces are from community members, kids, local organizations, and protesters. She said specifically, “people who just had something to say and saw a blank canvas.”
Memorialize the Movement’s mission statement is “to collect, preserve, and activate the plywood murals that Twin Cities artists created to illustrate the public discourse on police brutality, state violence, and the Black experience in this renewed civil rights movement.”
That’s why they’ve made an ever-expanding museum of sorts to document the uprising and the art that’s followed. Kelly even said most of it’s not from traditional artists.
“Essentially what I always tell people is that our goal, Memorialize the Movement, is that in 50 years when our grandchildren or great-grandchildren asked what happened at the Minneapolis uprising in 2020, they can come to us in our space and they can see the murals and they can sit with them and they can learn and understand what we went through and hopefully make sure that they don’t repeat it,” Kelly said.
Hannah Yee is the grant writing intern for the MTM initiative and said she got hired by the Minnesota Transform initiative. When she came to Minneapolis last spring, Yee said she felt lost writing the first grant for MTM.
“But since then I have learned so much just through writing about them and by going to these events and by getting close to Leesa and the interns,” Yee said. “It’s really helped me personally develop and then just feel a part of the community. And yeah, I’m very grateful for the experience.”
The work to lift, move and carry the plywood requires lots of physical labor. Members of the initiative hope they’ll be able to find more volunteers to help.
“I was one of the ones who were literally doing the heavy lifting, and now I don’t, because I can’t,” Kelly said. “We kind of try and rotate the volunteers because people get tired of moving these, frankly. And so every year we get a new set of volunteers to help do the work.”
Kelly and other volunteers recently photographed many of the murals that are stored in a Northeast Minneapolis building.
Lissa Karpeh, an artist in Minneapolis who created a mural outside of Urban Outfitters in Uptown in 2020, discussed the immediate effect that Floyd’s murder had on her and the community.
“I was just shocked […] As humans, there comes a point in life and society in a generation where you will become uncomfortable. […] George Floyd happened, and then boom. It put a wrench in our society. And when moments like that happen, it’s because there’s something going on in our society that we’re ignoring. And then it has to come out to the light. George Floyd was that light.”
Karpeh felt an uncontrollable urge to act right after Floyd was murdered. She initially joined protests in Minneapolis, but after some time grew physically exhausted. She couldn’t do it anymore. Then, she turned to what she knew: art. She bought supplies with her own money and began creating.
MTM will display the murals at their annual Justice For George Floyd Exhibit on May 21 from 12 p.m. – 8 p.m. at Phelps Field Park in Minneapolis.
“We need the story told in a way that people will absorb it. But not in a way that makes them feel comfortable, they don’t need to feel comfortable. They need to know what’s happening.”
-Leesa Kelly, founder of MTM