Rooted Futures: Building Sovereignty and Belonging Through Culture and Place
Myah Goff
Minneapolis American Indian Center
In the heart of Minneapolis’ American Indian Cultural Corridor, four arts and community development leaders from across the country gathered in the Minnesota American Indian Center’s gymnasium after a lunch prepared by Gatherings Café.
Moderated by John Williams, Vice President of Development at the Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI) in Minneapolis, the panel discussion came at a time when federal arts agencies are cutting DEI grants and programs.
What is on your mind that you haven’t talked to your boss or board of directors about yet?
Robert Lilligren, NACDI’s president and CEO, spoke to the pressure arts organizations face while staying true to their mission.
“Working in the nonprofit sector, we’re under a lot of scrutiny and suspicion,” Lilligren said. “One of the things I’m really interested in exploring with my boss is how we can maintain, grow and keep moving toward what looks like progress to us.”
“About 350,000 Black women have lost their jobs since April. The question I wake up with and go to sleep with every day is, ‘how do I hold my little small team together?’”
Evelyn Burnett, co-founder and CEO of ThirdSpace Action Lab in Cleveland, OH, shared concern for her mostly Black, women-led team, many of whom are heads of multigenerational households.
Kara Elliott-Ortega, the senior program officer of Arts and Culture at the Kresge Foundation in Detroit, MI, reflected on the fragility of imagination in structured institutions.
“I get a little worried that the practices we build, particularly in creative community development, don’t make enough space for skill-building around facilitating imagination,” Elliott-Ortega said. “How do we actually prototype the stuff we want to see in the world? What does it take to do that and to have the personal and community capacity to think that way?”
““The way the city interacts is not to say ‘thank you for doing this’ and ‘how can we help?’ but to toss out money in small amounts to different individuals for activations, pop-ups or other activities without thinking about the kinds of things that this corridor really needs. What this corridor needs is clean, green and safe.””
Lisa Goodman, director of strategic initiatives for the City of Minneapolis and former city council member, spoke about the frustrations of navigating systems that often operate in silos and of initiatives created without directly consulting the communities they affect.
How is art driving community development?
Burnett and Lilligren pointed to work grounded in storytelling and place.
ThirdSpace Action Lab’s Chocolate City Cleveland project documents and celebrates the city’s historically Black neighborhoods through oral histories with residents and community elders.
“We call the project a labor of love because it’s about archiving. It’s about storytelling. It’s historical preservation, ” Burnett said. “Art really allows for a depth and nuance of dialogue that allows people the necessary space to consider new possibilities.”
At NACDI, art is integrated into broader efforts of economic development, civic engagement and food sovereignty, rather than treated as separate issues.
“We’re in policy-making spaces to actually make these somewhat hostile places — at least hostile to BIPOC and certainly Native Americans — more accommodating,” Lilligren said. “We’re not translating our culture for non-Native institutions. We’re teaching institutions how to respect our culture and we don’t separate art into a nice little package. To us, as Indigenous peoples, it’s all one and the same.”
What needs to be done?
"The Sky is Bigger Out There," artwork by Mikaela Shafer at her solo exhibition Matrilineal Memory at All My Relations Gallery.
Panelists emphasized the importance of listening to communities and centering their voices in arts and civic initiatives. Goodman stressed, “nothing for you without you,” arguing that cities should collaborate with residents instead of dictating solutions.
Burnett cautioned that systemic problems can’t be solved within an annual grant cycle, calling on funders to focus on long-term capabilities of the people and organizations they support through training, mentorship and professional development.
She also urged philanthropists to recognize power dynamics, noting that organizers are often stretched thin and need funders to approach meetings by listening, problem-solving and co-creating solutions.
After the panel, attendees explored the Native-led gallery All My Relations Arts, where Hopi artist Mikaela Shafer’s “Matrilineal Memory” exhibit traced Indigenous grief and ancestral memory through watercolor, poetry and video installation.
