A new cultural arts center in downtown Minneapolis will open its doors Saturday, helping artists of color turn their creative practices into sustainable careers. 

Organizations like Public Functionary, Indigenous Roots and CLUES’ Latino Art Gallery have long supported artists as they grow their creative businesses. Roho Gallery & Cultural Arts Center aims to strengthen that ecosystem by offering artists marketing, branding and financial training alongside opportunities to exhibit and sell their work. 

Keep reading to learn more about Roho, meet the artists exhibiting at Minnehaha Falls, find out what to expect at the Floating Lanterns and Night Market Festival at Bde Maka Ska and learn how to create murals at the Center for Performing Arts. 

A business incubator for creatives of color

The grand opening of the Roho Gallery and Cultural Arts Center’s 3,000-square-foot space will mark a new chapter for the Roho Collective, a nonprofit founded by seven Twin Cities artists in 2017. 

Christopheraaron Deanes, a visual artist, educator and one of Roho’s original members, said the collective was created to expand opportunities for artists of color in Minnesota. 

“I had found out right away that the business side of being an artist is not part of the training that takes place in academic fields,” he said. “We’re Afrocentric so we know about the Black and brown artists that exist within our spaces but most people don’t. Most grants, most foundations, most of the folks with the money don’t know about us and it makes it very difficult for artists to position themselves to be successful.”

Since taking over leadership in 2019, Christopheraaron Deanes and co-executive director Cara Deanes have grown the organization beyond artist networking into business development. 

“Our organization is not so much helping artists with their actual creative practice, but it’s really showing them that they are the brand and they are the business,” Cara Deanes said. 

Rather than teaching painting techniques or studio practices, Roho helps artists learn the skills often left out of traditional arts education, including grant writing, branding, marketing and pricing artwork.   

Saturday’s grand opening will feature a ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside a permanent marketplace with vendors selling everything from clothing and jewelry to books and handmade goods. Throughout the day, visitors can experience Indigenous singing and drumming, Latin dance and spoken word. 

“The vision for the Roho Gallery and Cultural Arts Center is really to be a hub of cultural representation for the Twin Cities,” Cara Deanes said. “Not just a hub for artists but a home for our community.”

More than 30 Black artists will fill the gallery with paintings, sculptures and photography responding to the country’s political and social climate, including immigration policy and the erasure of Black history.

“When your family and friends come here to the Twin Cities to visit and they ask the question: ‘Where do I go to see some Black art? That was not a space unless it was a pop-up exhibit or an event or a fair,” Christopheraaron Deanes said. “Now it’s a space.” 

The opening will be followed by the second annual Roho Ignite Business Conference, which kicks off with an evening reception on July 23 at the center, before a day of programming on July 24. The conference will bring together creative professionals for workshops on artificial intelligence, social media, grant writing, marketing, mental health and how to navigate the world of pop-up markets. 

Attendees can also join a behind-the-scenes tour of the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Harlem Renaissance collection and hear from community arts leaders, including Ta-coumba T. Aiken, Tish Jones, Angela Two Stars and Chadwick “Niles” Phillips. 

5 artists to meet at Minnehaha Falls

While the views at Minnehaha Falls are reason enough to visit, the Minnehaha Falls Art Fair will fill the park with local artists, live music and global cuisine this weekend. New this year, visitors can vote for their favorite artist at an information booth near the Sea Salt Eatery. 

Among them is author and illustrator Meenal Patel, whose picture books are rooted in the warmth of Indian households and the innate curiosity in children. 

“I grew up in Minnesota but when I was living in San Francisco in 2013, my little niece came to visit me and I wanted a way for her to remember that trip so I made a picture book for her about a little kid adventuring around San Francisco,” Patel said. “She was only 2 years old, but she was just so delighted and thrilled to see a little person in the book that reflected her.”

“It really took seeing the impact on her for me to think about how important that is for all of us,” she added. 

Patel self-published “Neela Goes to San Francisco” in 2016 as her debut. Since then, she’s published “Priya Dreams of Marigolds & Masala” with Beaver’s Pond Press, and her latest, “Where Do Stories Live?” with Penguin Random House. 

“In my work, I’m really looking at the every day moments that connect us,” Patel said. “It’s an invitation to be curious about the stories that live within us and also the stories that live outside of us in the world around us — whether that’s nature or a family photo that we have in our house and pass every day. Sometimes there’s a deeper story behind that.” 

Also look for: Walia Hasan, whose clothing designs draw on Pakistani and Indonesian traditions; Alexis Hoghaug, who creates funky polymer clay jewelry; Aruna Rangarajan, whose mixed-media paintings feature women in traditional South Asian dress; and Mexican American singer-songwriter America Ortiz, who will perform Latin music on Sunday. 

Tibetan, Salvadoran, Indian, Thai, and Egyptian food trucks will also be on site. 

Lanterns and Latin dance at Bde Maka Ska

Sample Asian street food, desserts and drinks before watching lanterns glow across Bde Maka Ska during the Floating Lanterns and Night Market Festival on Saturday. 

Before the launch, Nancy Xiong will lead a sound bowl experience at 7:30 p.m. And just around the corner, One Reason Dance Studio will host a free lakeside dance party at Pimento Jamaican Kitchen featuring salsa, bachata and timba music. 

Mural-making at the Center for Performing Arts

Help paint two murals with local artists Hibaaq Ibrahim and Daren Scott Hill during a three-week workshop for ages 12 to 15. While the first session started this week, participants can still register to help create two indoor murals that will be on display during the Center for Performing Arts’ fall festival on Sept. 18. 

A federal lawsuit raises questions about the culture at a prior job of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s nominee for fire chief.

In those court documents, there are allegations of harassment and discrimination in an East Coast fire department during Reginald Freeman’s time there as chief.

The city is not commenting on this lawsuit, saying it was filed several years ago, doesn’t mention Freeman and concerns allegations involving a different city and state.

Mayor Frey had high praise for Freeman as he announced him as his choice for the chief’s position in May.

Frey nominates Reginald Freeman to be next Minneapolis fire chief

“The kind of leadership that he brings to the table is second to none,” the mayor declared at the time.

But a 2022 lawsuit raises questions about Freeman’s time as fire chief in Hartford, Connecticut.

“It should always be an open process,” says Paul Ostrow, a former Minneapolis City Council president. “It should always be one where the legislative body has the information they need to properly vet the executive’s appointment.”

Two female firefighters filed that federal lawsuit against the City of Hartford, saying they were “harassed and discriminated against by their employer because of their sex and/or race.”  

The document also says, “nearly every female who rose to the ranks of lieutenant or higher either filed an internal complaint of harassment and discrimination — or tragically, surrendered their promotion in order to avoid the hostility of the executive-level fire chiefs.”

It doesn’t mention Freeman specifically or accuse him of any wrongdoing.

But the lawsuit includes allegations of mistreatment while he was leading the department between 2016 and 2021.

We asked Ostrow: “Is it reasonable to say that the chief, the fire chief, would have known about this?”

“I think it’s reasonable to conclude that as chief, he would know about these things,” he says. “Certainly, that he should have known about these things.”

Ostrow calls the allegations “troubling.”

The nomination is now set for a public hearing next week.

We wondered if all of this should be part of the discussion.

“It should be,” Ostrow says. “The most important question I would ask, number one: ‘Was this disclosed to the mayor or the search team?’”

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS spoke with the mayor’s office late Wednesday night.

They told us again they’re not commenting on the lawsuit.

We’re still working to get a comment from Freeman himself.