The familiar phrase, “the revolution will not be televised,” is in the process of reframing. While so much of last year’s (and the ongoing) uprising appeared in the news and social media, I think it is still true. It is not being televised or honestly and truly depicted in the media.
The revolution, the true revolution, is still hidden behind an imperial gaze that is still the stock of our media soup, the one where even the “liberal” media is still apologizing for its figurative racist uncle and perpetuating his framing of the world.
Our movement is creating its own images, its own sounds and its own organic form. It is appearing in some media, thanks to the work of storytellers and media folk like Georgia Fort, who has educated an entire mediascape in the past year, even if they had halted their learning in recent days.
Many of the images and voices and sounds are coming in the form of the public art that was created spontaneously in the wake of the uprising. It is stunning. Much of it lives on the streets of our Twin Cities. Much of it lives on spots across the country. Much of it lives around the globe. The massive tectonic shift has not brought us a new earth, but the cracks are more obvious. Those fault lines are also chronicled by Memorialize the Movement, “an ongoing initiative to collect and preserve the plywood protest art that was created in response to the murder of George Floyd and the brutal state response to the call for justice on May 25th, 2020.”
Memorialize the Movement will be on display on the lawn of the East Side Freedom Library during the 2021 Solidarity Street Gallery, a three-day art and cultural festival along Payne Avenue, Thursday, September 23 to Saturday evening, September 25.
The Street Gallery began last year as one of the many pivots made during the pandemic. With the Saint Paul Art Crawl on hiatus, there was both an opportunity and need to highlight the overlooked artists of the East Side.
More importantly is the recognition and acknowledgement that all of this is taking place on Mni Sota Makoce, the original homeland of the Dakota people. Also, the East Side has become one of the strongest representations of cultural, racial, and ethnic merging of stories. This year, Oyate Hotanin (The Voice of the People), “a collection of artists, dealing with artistic means, to heal ourselves and simultaneously educate and inform others… responding to current and historic trauma. Our lens is the global impact of racism and genocide in our community… (and) imbed community conversations in these events to develop a movement in Indian country and beyond.” This year’s event will focus on the topics of Indigenous Sovereignty & Environmental Justice, centered on Native voices.
Oyate Hotanin is partnered with our neighbors Payne Area ReBOOT, a joint initiative between the East Side Neighborhood Development Company (ESNDC) and the Payne Arcade Business Association (ESNDC).
There will be three days of activity on the Avenue and one block east on Greenbrier, where the East Side Freedom Library sits at the top of the hill. Also, there will be music from Mayyadda and the Wooden Shoe Ramblers on Saturday, poetry and spoken word Friday evening, a movie from One Voice Mixed Chorus, ReMembering: Singing Water, an original choral film that explores Minnesota as a place of both home and exile for immigrants, LGBTQ people, and Indigenous people, displays and demonstrations from Karen weavers who have worked out of the library for years and even movement meditation.
The movement will be spoken with the art of the people. At ESFL, we are a collection of artists, scholars, community members and all activists, whether we call ourselves any of those things or not. We are speaking a new, more real narrative into the spaces of our community and society. We are a building filled with knowledge. Even more so, we are a place where people are using their voices to create knowledge–and art and the stories that are telling the true story of Mni Sota Makoce, Turtle Island, and a globe that must become more just, more true and in solidarity.
We hope you will join us and other East Siders for this and other great conversations. Bring your friends. Even bring your nemesis. We don’t want anyone to miss the revolution!
Love and Solidarity,
Clarence White
Associate Director