May 25, 2025, will mark five years since George Floyd was murdered at the hands of Minneapolis police and the community uprising that followed. As we continue to reflect on where we are now, a one-of-a-kind gallery honoring Floyd’s legacy and memorializing protest artwork will open next week in the University of Minnesota’s Katherine E. Nash Gallery.
“Art and Artifact: Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising” is a collaboration between the gallery and grassroots organization Memorialize the Movement (MTM). During the unrest following Floyd’s death, business owners in the area covered their storefront windows with sheets of plywood, many of which were soon painted over with powerful messages and murals by the community.
Photo by Easton M. Green
As business owners started taking down the plywood sheets, MTM’s founder and executive director, Leesa Kelly, collected as many as possible to ensure that the artwork and stories of Black and Brown community members would not be lost. As stated on the organization’s website, MTM’s work “is meant to memorialize this time and place in history and honor the original purpose of the murals, which were a means of protest. Justice is truth, and truth lies in these murals.”
Photo by Easton M. Green
The exhibition, which runs Sept. 10 through Dec. 7, features a selection of the plywood murals from MTM’s collection (which totals over 1,000). Curated by former MTM and Katherine E. Nash Gallery intern Amira McLendon, “Art and Artifact” is the largest gallery exhibition of the murals to date.
The gallery has also published an exhibition catalog featuring 100 full-page, color images of murals, with supplemental essays and interpretive context contributed by Kelly, McLendon, Leslie Guy, and Seph Rodney.
To pre-order the catalog or plan your visit to the upcoming exhibition, visit the gallery’s website.
Photo by Easton M. Green
