Did you know that more than 90 languages are spoken in Minneapolis alone? Neighbors from different backgrounds host art-making activities and share their cultures, languages, and more. Join us to explore themes of language and place through a day organized in partnership with local organization Dear Gaza.
Free First Saturdays feature free gallery admission on the first Saturday of every month, plus performances, games, art-making, and kids’ films from 10 am to 3 pm. Family friendly food options are available or bring something from home to snack on in the museum’s public spaces.
Performance: DJ Chamun
10 am–3 pm
Dance your heart out to music from around the world spun by DJ Chamun!
Art-Making Activity: Mindful Smells and Painting
10 am–3 pm
Use fragrant spices and herbs with cultural connections to Palestine to paint coloring pages designed by artist Lamia Abukhadra.
Art-Making Activity: Kao Lee Thao
10 am–3 pm
Join artist Kao Lee Thao as she channels her Hmong ancestors by embroidering and cross-stitching an interactive weaving wall to create a one-of-a-kind story cloth.
Art-Making Activity: Negotiating Borders
10 am–3 pm
Use found materials to build your own territories and spaces within the museum.
Dance Workshop: Noelle Awadallah
11 am and 1 pm
Join Noelle Awadallah for a dance workshop celebrating differences in language, abilities, voice, and movement. Dance workshops are 35 minutes.
Gallery Tour
Join a Walker-trained educator on a participatory 45-minute tour for kids that will explore the idea of place. Meet in the Main Lobby.
English, 11 am
Spanish, 1 pm
Lamia Abukhadra is an interdisciplinary research-based artist and printmaker based in Minneapolis and Beirut. Her work examines how harmful dominant narratives that affect the perception of Palestinian representation. Through alternative frameworks Abukhadra works within the community to bring light to strange, intimate, and historical connections and poetic occurrences.
Noelle Awadallah is a Palestinian American improviser, performer, educator, and maker working on the intersection of dance and social justice. Based in Chicago and Minneapolis, her work revolves around the question of “what could have been or what will be” for Palestine.
DJ Chamun is Chamindika Wanduragala, a Sri Lankan American visual artist, stop-motion animation filmmaker, and puppeteer based in Minneapolis. She is also the founder/director of Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop, which supports Native/POC in developing creative and technical skills in contemporary puppetry. DJ Chamun spins a wide range of music, international in scope.
Dear Gaza is a Minneapolis-based nonprofit which fosters international solidarity of Palestinians through community events and artistic programming, using celebration as a tool of resistance.
Kao Lee Thao is a visual artist and 3D animator. Her work is infused with an expressively fluid style that allows viewers to travel into the past and see the echo of Hmong folktales, themes, and patterns passed down verbally from generation to generation in the Hmong culture.
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