FACT SHEET
SPEAKING OF HOME – ST. PAUL
A project by Nancy Ann Coyne
Summer 2014 – Spring 2015
Description
Speaking of Home – St. Paul will be the first public artwork and creative placemaking project ever
installed in St. Paul skyways. The project is an expansion of public artist and designer Nancy Ann
Coyne’s groundbreaking 2008 pilot project, installed in Downtown Minneapolis skyways over a four
month period with funding provided in part by a 2005 research and development grant from Forecast
Public Art.
The primary goals of Speaking of Home – St. Paul are to use the power of creative placemaking to
empower immigrants and draw attention to their lives and struggles through the arts while revitalizing
downtown St. Paul, acting as a catalyst for its economic and cultural development. Utilizing four highly
trafficked Downtown St. Paul skyways – glass-enclosed, second-story pedestrian bridges over busy city
streets – the social justice art project consists of the installation of monumental photographs and text on
the windows of the skyways, revealing the stories of immigrants who now call the Twin Cities home.
Scheduled to be on view for a minimum of nine months, the installation explores the meaning of home to
people who came to Minnesota from many countries and of all ages, and provides a visual representation
of the State’s significantly diverse population.
Collaborating with more than 50 immigrants to the Twin Cities, each will share with Coyne their
treasured family photographs from their country of origin, engage in an interview about their journey to
Minnesota and the meaning of home for each. It is from these sessions that the content of the installation
is developed – the personal photos and stories of people who made a choice to call Minnesota their home.
Speaking of Home – St. Paul is co-presented by Public Interest, Inc., Forecast Public Art, the City of St.
Paul, the Family Housing Fund (FHF), CommonBond Communities, and the University of Minnesota’s
Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in partnership with the Walker Art Center’s MNArtist Program, St.
Paul BOMA, the Capitol River Council and Springboard for the Arts.
Intended Demographics and Audience Projection
On view for nine months, Speaking of Home – St. Paul has the potential to reach millions of viewers
during its installation, profoundly affecting downtown St. Paul as an educational, cultural, and civic asset.
The project will demonstrate how public art can generate public awareness about immigrants’ challenges
as well as Minnesota as a gateway state and St. Paul as a gateway city while assisting downtown St. Paul
in its rejuvenation.
The four St. Paul skyways are used by some 18,000 pedestrians per day, and approximately 75,000
people visit downtown each day. The installation will be clearly visible from four of downtown’s busiest
streets, as well as from several of the city’s most heavily used bus lines (delivering some 12,000 people to
downtown St. Paul every workday). The Minneapolis installation, on display for just four months, drew
an estimated audience of 850,000 people.
Community Programming, Education and Outreach
Working closely with its project partners, Forecast, the Family Housing Fund and the University of
Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study will develop and present a broad range of educational
programming and outreach initiatives for Speaking of Home – St. Paul, with the goal of engaging a
diverse audience base through a wide variety of activities. The project will be used to leverage
discussions and events that provide numerous learning opportunities and address issues that range from
personal rights and responsibilities to public policies and urban planning. Community-based activities
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will include lectures, performances, an outdoor street festival and more, all utilizing various nearby St.
Paul institutions such as the Science Museum, Landmark Center, McNally-Smith College, Springboard
for the Arts, etc. Topics will include the history of immigration in Minnesota, the power of public art and
place-making, skyways as public space, race relations and affordable housing, among others. In addition,
curriculum is being developed which will harness the learning opportunities of Speaking of Home – St.
Paul to help area secondary schools meet Minnesota State education standards in art, literacy,
multicultural understanding, communication skills and social science.
Technology and the Walker Art Center’s MNArtist Program
Developed in partnership with the Walker Art Center’s MNArtist Program, Speaking of Home – St. Paul
will feature a custom designed geo-specific smart phone application, with professionally recorded and
edited audio and video interviews with many of the participants (with two per skyway). This application
will also help to market the project via social media and allow for a high level of interactivity with
audiences.
The Speaking of Home website (www.speakingofhome.org) includes content designed to foster crosscultural awareness among visitors, provide public programming and event details, as well as a project
video and an online archive for preserving each participant’s story. These online components will interact
with the smart phone technology being developed for the project.
Project Specification and Design
Photographs: 58 larger-than-life (10-foot by 12-foot) translucent black and white family photographic
portraits of immigrants now living in the Twin Cities.
Installation: The photographs will be installed seamlessly in the 58 windows of four skyway bridges. The
four skyways—each 77x11 feet—form a kind of “town square” over Sixth and Minnesota streets in the
heart of St. Paul.
Materials: Photographs are printed on a sheer, scrim banner fabric; biographies of the subjects will appear
on plexi-glass silk-screened text panels. The semitransparent images are visible day and night, from inside
and outside the skyways. A text panel excerpting participant stories accompanies each image. The word
“home,” written in each person’s native language, is installed adjacent to each portrait. In addition,
didactic text panels including the history of immigration in Minnesota are displayed in each skyway.
Companion Book
A Speaking of Home book will be published by Forecast Public Art in cooperation with project partners.
Featuring full color, professionally shot photographs of both the Minneapolis pilot and the St. Paul
installation, the book will feature in-depth essays from noted public art writers. Each participant’s story
and photograph will be given a page, along with expanded text from their interviews.
Funders
Funders/In-Kind Supporters to date include: National Endowment for the Arts, the Trillium Family
Foundation, the City of St. Paul Cultural Star Grant, the Minnesota State Arts Board, Bush Foundation,
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, McKnight Foundation, General Mills, 3M, the Jay and Rose
Phillips Family Foundation, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, COMPAS, Elmer L. & Eleanor H.
Andersen Family Foundation, DesignTex, Larsen Design, Archetype Signmakers, Fisher Fabrics, Hewlett
Packard, Industrial Fabrics Association International, ILS Translations, Monotype, VISI Incorporated,
Pioneer Press Newspaper, Technophobia Consulting, CityLitesUSA-Skyway Advertising, Brad Palm
SPEAKING OF HOME – ST. PAUL
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LLC, The Lab Digital Production, Do and Design LLC, Adrian Danciu/Cinematographer, Dan
Jagunich/Editor, Joseph Borman LLC Law Firm and Fox Tax.
Awards and Honors
Coyne’s award-winning 2008 pilot project received numerous awards and national recognition, including
Americans for the Arts’ 2009 Best American Public Artwork (www.usaarts.org), the Society for
Environmental Designer’s 2009 International Merit Award (www.segd.org) and the IFAI 2009
International Award of Excellence in Design (www.ifai.org). She is currently a Bush Foundation Artist
Fellow.
Evaluation: A Pioneering Field Study
Project organizers are finalizing a groundbreaking evaluation of Speaking of Home – St. Paul, to be
conducted by nationally recognized arts consultant Bill Cleveland of the Center for the Study of Art &
Community. The evaluation will seek to identify cause/effect relationships between project activities and
their short and long term impact on participants, audiences and the urban core of downtown St. Paul. The
study will aid in the development of a new and comprehensive evaluative regimen that will be published
as a field study and distributed, nationally. According to Cleveland, this in-depth study will be “the first
of its kind” focusing on the impact of a temporary public art installation in a controlled urban setting.
Contact Information
For more information on Speaking of Home – St. Paul, please contact:
Jack Becker, Public Art Manager, Forecast Public Art
jack@forecastpublicart.org
651-340-1168
www.forecastpublicart.org
Nancy Ann Coyne, Project Director, Public Artist
coyne007@umn.edu
612-702-7336
www.speakingofhome.org