Joan Vorderbruggen
Interviewed December 9, 2015 | Written and photographed by Ilya Natarius
The sign in the window reads “MADE HERE” in all caps, with an outline of Minnesota replacing the letter “R.” Images, type, logos, and other aspects of Hennepin Avenue placed out of context are mixed into an image that covers the entire window space. Later I will find out that the piece is titled Empire State by local artist Lizardman. I stop to admire the artwork, then continue my walk up Hennepin Avenue. Up ahead I see more Made Here displays as well as the recently painted Bob Dylan mural by international artist Eduardo Kobra. Seeing all of this is fitting as I’m on my way to meet with Joan Vorderbruggen, the director of public art and placemaking at the Hennepin Theatre Trust, and the woman responsible for both of the aforementioned projects.
Joan and I are to meet in her office for the interview before heading out to Hennepin Avenue to view a few of the displays. Hennepin Avenue has become the heart of the Made Here project, which is Joan’s way of turning everyday spaces into art displays. The Made Here displays range from painted pieces, to hardware installations, to interactive social media screens showcasing people’s response to a question, all with the goal of focusing underused spaces in the WeDo (West Downtown) Cultural District on accessibility to art and artists, community engagement, and awareness of what is possible in the city.
As I round the corner onto Fifth Avenue, nearing the Hennepin Theatre Trust offices, I walk past a few more of the displays and take note of the increasing diversity in art that I’m witnessing, simply from walking down the street. I wonder about the cultural impact of such a project — something Joan and I discuss at length during our conversation.
Throughout her life Joan has always tried to find ways to help others and found her calling in bringing art to the public in areas that were previously ignored. By finding something that has been ignored or overlooked and imagining the possibilities of the space, along with the positive influence it can bring, Joan is able to transform the surrounding urban landscape into a work of art that showcases a great many talents from the city.
This infusion of culture is Joan’s way of helping people through art, creating a space in which to discuss opinions with a stranger, or simply to admire something beautiful and gain appreciation for the art in our city. Underused spaces that hold the potential of becoming cultural hot zones are Joan’s specialty and the largest driving force in her work. This is the reason I walk down Hennepin Avenue; Joan has found a way to turn her drive into her canvas, and walking past the Made Here displays and Dylan mural are an ideal way to view that firsthand.
Though Joan has always been interested in the betterment of communities and cities through art, her career began with the betterment of individuals. Joan was a nurse for seventeen years in Minnesota, Arizona, Oregon, and New York before making a full career switch to a full-time arts organizer in 2014. In 2008, Joan moved back to Minneapolis and began freelancing on the side as an artist specializing in designs to liven storefronts. In 2012, Joan began the Artists in Storefronts public art project, centered along Eat Street in Minneapolis. In 2013, Joan was hired by the Hennepin Theatre Trust as the cultural district arts coordinator and leader of the Made Here project, which continues Joan’s vision to create public art by bringing it to downtown Minneapolis. Most recently, Joan orchestrated the creation of the buzzed-about Bob Dylan mural on Fifth and Hennepin that was painted by Eduardo Kobra and his crew. Joan continues to plan public art projects with the Hennepin Theatre Trust today.
To see the streets as a canvas for artwork the way Joan does takes a special sort of eye, and great dedication for the work involved. “I average thirteen miles a day walking when we’re doing installs,” Joan says. However, as mentioned before, Joan wasn’t always working on public art displays. After making her way back to Minneapolis from New York City at the end of her nursing career, she had a much larger amount of free time than she ever did on the East Coast. Her apartment was larger and she was able to get a studio and spend more time creating art. Joan began to receive recognition for her work. “I began making dresses on upcycled slips,” Joan says. “With those dresses I started doing craft fairs and trunk shows, and the dresses sold really well. I was selling like twenty dresses a month.”
It was at this point that Joan noticed an opportunity to turn the storefront out of which she was selling dresses into a display. “I saw that [the shop’s] windows were really lacking and I asked them if they would let me do a creative visual display in their storefront, and they did. When I did it, their business increased by 40 percent, and then I started doing other designs for other storefronts and started winning awards for some of my designs,” she says.
Joan had found her calling for her art, and simultaneously discovered the driving force for her work: streets, city blocks — any public place with the potential to be turned into a work of art. Inspired by Wing Young Huie’s University Avenue Project, Joan appreciated the idea that the street could become an urban walking gallery — that it could be a canvas for people to have interactions with fine art. She began to pitch larger ideas around Minneapolis and eventually started working on storefronts on Eat Street. Soon afterward, the Hennepin Theatre Trust reached out to her to work on Made Here — a project that had a name, but not a strategy, at the time — and Joan has been working with them ever since.
Joan believes that street art has already brought people together, but will begin to do so even more, creating an open forum in which people can begin to have meaningful conversations. “We’re so disconnected, and the streets are the spaces that we share, where we come together. But do we come together on the street with each other? Not usually. I’m not saying that art is going to make that happen, but in a way it gives you permission to take a pause,” Joan says. For her, that’s the beginning of the process of coming together. Simply facilitating and beginning to piece together a
more helpful, peaceful, and inclusive community is the long-term goal. “When we did [Made Here around] Block E, the transformation was totally palpable, and the reports that I got from the guards and the people that run the buildings said, ‘You just reduced the stress of the city,’” Joan says, elaborating on the long-term effects that Made Here has had on the downtown atmosphere. Joan’s drive — the reason for her work — is represented in that feedback: the ability to reduce the stress of a city while making it better through beautifying the streets.
With Joan’s work, however, comes the issue of creating exclusivity — something that Joan has thought about at length and fights against with her work. “We don’t want to create a state of disbelonging, and gentrification is an issue. When things get better, then do low income residents and people in the community have to go away? Who does it get better for? So how do we make things better that’s inclusive [and] doesn’t say, ‘You don’t belong here anymore’? How does that transformation live on for those people?” Joan asks.
She elaborates on the statement and outlines how her work has tried to combat the issue of exclusivity through gentrification. “I think [it’s] making a culture of opportunity that’s supportive for artists, that gets buy-in from property owners that say, ‘I want to be a part of that.’ [It’s] allowing artists that maybe aren’t mid-career or professionals and giving them that opportunity and providing them with the support that they need so that they have a good experience. We need this type of work to benefit everybody on some level,” Joan says.
With the streets as her canvas and drive, Joan has already received acclaim for taking something seemingly plain or run down and turning it into a work of public art. The level of energy and passion that she gets from seeing room for improvement in the city is electrifying. With a canvas as large as an entire city, it takes an unimaginable amount of motivation to even begin to transform it with art. But when the motivation is as large and determined as the city itself, the transformation becomes more plausible, and Joan is certainly up to the task.
