Public Art Saint Paul

Join Public Art Saint Paul and make a difference in the lives of Saint Paul residents with a charitable donation.

Public Art Saint Paul has emerged in 2024 with a rejuvenated sense of purpose. Last year, we launched the Wakpa Triennial Art Festival—ambitious and galvanizing. It crystalized the organization’s engagement through art encountered and experienced in public spaces. Planning and preparing is already underway for the second installment of Wakpa, occasioning the United States Semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Wakpa Triennial is to serve as an ongoing program, increasingly led by Indigenous Minnesotans, aiming to uplift indigenous artists—through showcase, mentorship, and renumeration—especially artists living in Minnesota or with historical connections to our state, such as by way of the Dakota Expulsion Act of 1862. Our ambition for the Wakpa Triennial is that it grows to become a dynamic attraction and destination, one that contributes to a national conversation about indigenous peoples and cultures. 

Public Art Saint Paul has redoubled its efforts to support various Departments of the City of Saint Paul through consultation, ideation, and community outreach. Such efforts mostly manifest in the work performed by the City Artist, whose charge is to aid such Departments’ city building efforts. The City Artist position has existed for nearly two decades, and its occupants have been responsible for such standout public art projects and programs as Be Real Be Everywhere, Flora Stop Signs, Popup Meeting, and, most pervasively, Sidewalk Poetry.

Public Art Saint Paul stewards tens of public artworks it has commissioned over its near-four decades in existence, as well as about twenty works adorning Western Sculpture Park, long location of our arts education and enrichment programs for adults and youth, especially serving those in the park’s neighborhood.

Your donation today will directly support the people with whom Public Art Saint Paul works— artists, teaching artists, arts administrators, and arts conservationists— to shape public spaces, improve city systems, and deepen civic engagement. Help us close the year on a high note, a potent gesture of your encouragement of our efforts, under the guidance of our recently appointed President and Executive Director Mohannad Ghawanmeh.

Thank you for your support!