Wakpa is Dakota for river. The Wakpa Triennial Art Festival honors the Mississippi River as a living cultural landscape—a sacred site, a historical witness, and a shared community resource. Over the month of September through early October 2026, over forty commissioned artists will transform public space into a collective expression of art, reflection, and belonging.

Tired of social media being so anti-social? Sick of explaining social media to family members? Brave New Workshop and your favorite performers are back with The Algorithm is Gonna Get You — an all-new sketch comedy revue to help you flex on your feed, face your FOMO and finally feel the freedom to forget your phone!

The City of Minneapolis’ Arts & Cultural Affairs Department and The Loft Literary Center are partnering to identify the 2027–2028 Minneapolis Poet Laureate. Now in its third cycle, the two-year term for the Minneapolis Poet Laureate opens on August 12, 2026. Poets and spoken word artists are encouraged to apply.

The Minneapolis Poet Laureate is an official ambassador of the city’s literary culture, connecting our community through the art of poetry. As an advocate for poetry and the literary arts in Minneapolis, the poet laureate embodies a combination of artistic excellence, cultural awareness and leadership to engage the community in meaningful, impactful, and innovative projects.

Set in the aftermath of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Nina Simone: Four Women imagines a conversation between Simone and three Black women whose personal stories help inspire her cathartic anthem, “Mississippi Goddam.” Through live music, movement, and charged conversation, witness the birth of a song that gave voice to a movement.

Oyate Hotanin delivers! We have a good show for you featuring arágidi, a 2026 First People's Fund Native Performing Arts Fellow and a citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Mandan and Hidatsa descent. Their work examines euphoric grief and mournful mirth.

Existing at the crossroads of the modern and traditional, they aim to use performance as a method to activate and teach audiences about the importance of honoring all that humanity has to offer.

This living exhibit garden is co-curated by the Arboretum and community partners. Relying on knowledge passed through grandparents, the Original People’s Garden features plants the Ojibwe people of the Woodlands and Great Lakes regions use as food and medicines. The exhibit highlights stories and plants that are often missing from botanic gardens and exists in the teaching garden.

In a city still reckoning with the human, civic, and economic consequences of Operation Metro Surge, a group of Minnesota artists is asking a question that reaches far beyond the state: When official accounts and lived experience collide, who will preserve what happened?

The exhibition confronts the fear and disruption produced by the federal immigration enforcement operation while documenting something less frequently captured in official reports: the extraordinary ways communities organized to protect one another.

Join Vibrant Storefront awardee, Flavor World for an evening of creativity, connection, and community at the Flavor World Art Share! A relaxed, show-and-tell style gathering where artists of all mediums are invited to share their work.

Whether you’re sharing a work in progress or a finished piece, this is a welcoming space to be seen and heard. There will be N/A beverages and snacks served. All people, all skill levels, and all mediums of art are welcome. Come hang out, discover and support local talent, and maybe even share something of your own.

That Felt Good is a weekly variety show brought to you by a fuzzy puppet and their ragtag team of skin-covered best friends. Every Friday night, we kick things off with a special guest comedian, followed by a hodgepodge of long-form improv with some music/film/miscellany scattered in. 

With a cast of a Henson Company-trained puppeteer, a clown, an opera singer, and your favorite improvisers and performers, TFG promises that no two shows will be the same, but every one will be the weirdest thing you've seen all week. 

Thursday evenings are back at the Depot this fall. Beginning in September, we’ll be open until 8pm every Thursday, with something extra happening on the first three Thursdays of each month. For September 3, join us for music, spoken word, comedy and more, with 10-minute performance slots and an audience welcome, too.

Enjoy free live music on select Wednesdays from 5:30pm-7:30pm at the Harriet Island Regional Park Target Stage. Food trucks will be on site with options for purchase.

The fun is all about out on the block this summer. Get outdoors and join us on the back patio and field as we bring out the music, dance, play some games, have a talent show, stay cool by the pool, and enjoy summertime in the city. It’s an active, fun adventure everyday and the staff at the park will make sure that it Rocks the Block!

Enjoy snacks, beverages, and a living-room reading of the hilarious and poignant Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties by Jen Silverman. We invite you to participate in our play-picking process and would love to hear your thoughts on this potential choice for our 2027 mainstage production.

Rough Magic Performance Company is a professional theater company focused on supporting women artists, audiences, and stories; we strive to embrace the complexities and diversity of women’s experiences from classics to contemporary work while promoting artistic excellence and community engagement.

Iranian-American artist and filmmaker Kamyar Mohsenin, based in Oakland, CA, presents his second solo visual art exhibition, one was (yeki bud), one was not (yeki nabud) — named after the traditional opening line of Persian fairy tales and folklore, the equivalent of “once upon a time”.

Through ceramics, animation, and film, the exhibition explores ancestral dreams, traditional myths, and Sufi mysticism, dwelling at the point where what is inherited becomes legend, and memory gives way to invention.

DUMAR FEST is a day dedicated to celebrating all things Somali women. From our creativity and stories to our joy, brilliance, and the ways we effortlessly build and sustain community, and everything in between.

We’re bringing together art, film, movement, food, conversation, community, and more for a full day of gathering. This is just the beginning! Watch this space as we announce the exciting lineup of activities, artists, vendors, and experiences coming to Dumar Fest.

Last winter, hundreds, if not thousands, of people across Minneapolis documented the federal occupation of their city block by block. They used cameras to create a record of abuses perpetrated by the government, hold powers-that-be accountable for false narratives and help keep their neighbors safer.

We are thrilled to share this exhibit, which will consist of over 50 prints that provide a multifaceted record of the surge. At our photo night on the 28th, you’ll hear community members speak about their own experiences making these images

Since 2021, the Minnesota State Fair has worked with Forecast Public Art and the Minnesota State Fair Foundation to present the Joyful World Mural Park. During the fair each year from 2021–2024, and now again in 2026, visual artists have created murals on-site, enlivening a new green space with public art. Fair visitors can watch artists work in a variety of styles. 

Over the years, the mural park has become a favorite tradition for many fairgoers. It offers a welcoming place to meet artists while they work. The mural park offers a moment of art and relaxation amid the Fair’s busy excitement. A selection of murals from past years remain a seasonal attraction on the fairgrounds, displayed all summer before returning to the mural park during the Fair. Find the Joyful World Mural Park south of the Grandstand, east of Grandstand Ramp, near the carousel.

Once per quarter, we present a Trylon Club members only screening. Admission is free at the door for members in good standing. Daimyō level members can receive one guest ticket (a guests ticket is $8 for other members, space permitting). Seating is limited, and admission is not guaranteed.

Our August 26 secret movie fits perfectly into our Taking the Scenic Route series…

How do we make sense of our surroundings? How have events and encounters throughout our lives impacted our relationship with the environment? In a time when humans are becoming less and less connected with nature, Norwegian-Finnish artist duo Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth’s ongoing collaboration, Eyes as Big as Plates, explores this question through humans, quite literally, immersed in their surroundings. 

The surreal photography series was initially conceived as a play on Nordic folklore characters and has grown into a project spanning over 160 uniquely crafted portraits shot across 17 countries and five continents, from the Nordic region to the South Pacific. 

join us for free weekly Open Studio sessions! These are open to everyone in the community, whether you are an experienced printmaker or just curious to try something new.

Open Studio is a chance to create, experiment, and connect. This opportunity is for artists who need facilities to make work, past or current workshop participants who need extra time in the classroom, and community members who need a space to create or process through print. 

Materials are provided at no cost and are nontoxic. A studio host will be on hand each week to offer guidance, answer questions, help brainstorm ideas, and keep the space welcoming and collaborative.

An art workshop to reckon with all of our fears and failures, hosted by Grover Hogan.

Based on the tarot card of The Star (XVII), the Star Party is an art making activity, community gathering, and overhead projector story telling time for anxious, irritated, and scared adults.

What Is Love traces painter Suzanne Jackson’s (US, b. 1944) lifelong devotion to beauty as a political force. As the first major museum retrospective devoted to the artist’s career, the exhibition spans six decades of work and highlights her evolving engagement with poetry, dance, and theater.

At the center of Jackson’s practice is a dedication to both the earthly and spiritual dimensions of love. Her joyful experimentations with color, light, and materiality refuse stereotypical notions of Blackness, insisting instead on complexity and tenderness. In her early figurative works, loose washes of acrylic paint reveal a reverence for memory and ancestral lineage. In later works, representational forms give way to abstraction.

Join us at the Bell for our next star party! Outside, we’ll have our telescopes set up to observe our favorite deep space objects (weather permitting). Inside, our expert astronomy team will guide you through the night sky and highlight cosmic sights in our planetarium and you can explore different hands-on activities.

What better way to spend a summer evening than listening to great music and finding creative inspiration? Join MHC, Mixed Precipitation, and fellow participants for the Pickup Truck Opera’s presentation of “The Tales of Hoffmann.”

Future meets past in the wild adventures of a traveling poet who encounters ghosts, robots, magicians, and shape-shifting demons in pursuit of love and art! This contemporary mashup features 90’s grunge, R&B, and opera classics. Kick back, relax, and enjoy a musical extravaganza on the MHC lawn.

The August meeting marks an exciting milestone, as it is the first to include the newly appointed Minneapolis Arts Commissioners. For the first time, all 13 wards will be seated, ensuring full citywide representation and bringing a broad range of perspectives to the arts in our city.

Two Rivers Gallery is pleased to announce What Could Not Be Erased: Ledger Art by Joe Pulliam, a solo exhibition featuring the work of acclaimed Oglala Lakota ledger artist, Joe Pulliam. Born and raised on Pine Ridge Reservation, Pulliam carries forward a powerful tradition of Lakota storytelling through ledger art.

His work is deeply rooted in the histories of resistance, survival, and cultural continuity that have shaped Lakota people for generations. Through vibrant drawings on historic and contemporary documents, Pulliam transforms records once tied to colonial control into powerful expressions of indigenous memory, identity, and sovereignty.  

The Sound Garden is an experiential offering to support personal well-being and resilience. Throughout history, humans have turned to the arts to express our joy, soothe our fears, ease our grief, and build community.

The Sound Garden is self-guided experience. You’re invited to sit, stand, lie down, and move around as you wish. Feel free to bring a blanket or to lay on the ground. We’ll provide a few. While designed to be a deepening experience over time, you’re welcome to drop in at any time during the experience and stay for as much or as little time as you’re able to.

Days like these don’t come too often. Today is the day. A few RSVPs left, grab yours now.

Live DJs. Free screen printing. Free collaging w/ Mickey Day. Food from @whajamaicanllc , @lussandwiches , & Big Bell Ice Cream. Lawn and board games. Free ice cream for the first 100 guests. Cash bar by @toast_tours.

Presented by Artropolis and Samambo World.

MEXIMALISMO, an exhibition and fashion show inspired by Mexican maximalism, a vibrant cultural and design movement, adapted to feature the work of 20+ artists representing cultures from across Latin American through “more is more” aesthetics, bold colors, rich textures, artisan craftsmanship, and popular culture symbols.

Presented by Serpentina Arts. Attendees are encouraged to come in their most outrageous, maximalist outfit. Curated by: Silvana Agostoni and María Cristina Tavera

Fall Forward Festival is a presentation and celebration of Twin Cities dance, both the perennial companies who define us, and the newest voices in our community. The festival includes performances, educational experiences, and community engagement activations.

Fall Forward Festival was originally the brainchild of The Cowles Center, and is now under the helm of Hothouse Studios. Hothouse believes in the robust local dance community, and our endless potential to create work that challenges and entertains audiences.