A tree branch, a ceramic cup, a laundromat—how can familiar items or places be transformed into artworks? Explore the poetic potential of organic materials and everyday objects through art-making activities and interactive performance inspired by the exhibition Tetsuya Yamada: Listening.
Free First Saturday features free gallery admission on the first Saturday of every month. Gallery admission tickets are available in advance online and on-site on the event day from the Main Lobby desk. Free admission 10 am–5 pm; activities 10 am–3 pm.
Activity Information
Sound Collector Show and Tell, 11 am
Join artists Tetsuya Yamada and Douglas R. Ewart to explore Ewart’s collection of constructed and invented instruments. Part conversation, part performance, this interactive event will get you curious about ancient and everyday materials and draw your attention to new sounds.
Art-Making Activity: Make a Zine with Twin Cities Zine Fest Artists, 10 am–3 pm
Visit this pop-up zine workshop hosted by Twin Cities Zine Fest artists to create a DIY publication to share with friends, family, or other zine lovers. Visitors can personalize a zine inspired by the exhibition Tetsuya Yamada: Listening, or create something all their own!
Art-Making Activity: Box Banjo, 10 am–3 pm
Who says you need a fancy instrument to make music? Use simple materials to create your own strum-able cardboard box banjo.
Tour for Families, 11:30 am
Tour for General Audiences, 1 pm
Join a Walker educator for a family-friendly guided tour of artworks on view in the galleries at 11:30 am (40 min.), or take a guided tour for general audiences at 1 pm (60 min.). Tours explore a selection of artworks across current exhibitions and include interactive discussion. Meet at the Main Lobby desk five minutes before the tour starts.
Short Film: Le voyage délivré (The Released Journey), 10 am–3 pm
Stop by the Bentson Mediatheque to watch a family friendly short film! A young child’s imagination takes flight while playing with their favorite blocks in this gentle animation set to a poem by Andrée Chedid. The three-minute film will loop between 10 am and 3 pm.
Visit the Walker Art Center Library, 10 am–3 pm
The Walker’s library is open! Explore the stacks and find inspiration in the library’s collection of artful books. The library entrance is through the Art Lab.
Accessibility
The short film will be captioned in English.
For information about accessibility, or to request additional accommodations for this program, call 612-375-7564, or email access@walkerart.org.
For more information about accessibility at the Walker, visit our Access page.
Bios
Douglas R. Ewart (b. Kingston, Jamaica) is a lecturer and workshop director; the past president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and instructor in the AACM School of Music; and a performer of original music with Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, and others. At age 10, he started to experiment with sound and designing musical instruments—tin cans were altered to become hand drums and pieces of wood were fashioned into rattles. When his family bought a rug rolled around a large piece of bamboo, he seized on the bamboo as a potential flute. Thus began what has become today a high art practiced by Ewart alone: the construction of sonorous “totem flutes” colorful as bamboo rainbows, adorned with wood-burned designs and haunting images. Ewart’s kaleidoscopic talent finds expression in a range of forms, including instruments, inventions, masks, costumes, music, and acting; and his repertoire might be mistaken for the work of a small culture rather than one man.
Tetsuya Yamada (b. Japan) is a Twin Cities–based artist whose interdisciplinary practice blurs the lines between art, design, and craft. Yamada was awarded a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship and has been twice awarded the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Visual Artists and the McKnight Foundation Fellowship for Ceramic Artists. He has participated in artist residencies at the European Ceramic Work Center (EKWC) in the Netherlands and at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. Yamada has had exhibitions at Francis Naumann Fine Art, Franklin Art Works, and the Clay Studio. His work is in the collections of the Mint Museum, the Portland Museum of Art, the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Walker Art Center. The Walker-organized exhibition Tetsuya Yamada: Listening is the first US museum presentation of the artist’s work.
Twin Cities Zine Fest (TCZF) is an annual celebration of zines and self-publishing in the Twin Cities and beyond. TCZF aims to sustainably support self-publishing and the DIY ethic in our communities, with an intersectional focus on politically and socially engaged zines, community partnership, and amplifying the voices of those who have been historically unheard.
)
)
)
)
)
)
