Want to see art come to life right before your eyes? Check out the sixth annual Downtown Minneapolis Street Art Festival on August 10 and 11 from 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Taking place on Nicollet Mall between 6th and 11th Streets, the festival showcases local, national, and international artists.
“We are trying to revitalize, reimagine, and just re-energize our downtown community here post-COVID,” says Christian Huble, the public space engagement manager for the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District and the event manager for the festival.
This year, 18 chalk artists and eight spray paint artists were jury-selected to turn the streets into artwork. Not only are all of the artists paid, but new artists can be paired with a more experienced artist and receive mentorship.
The Downtown Minneapolis Street Art Festival is also making sure that their featured artists are demographically diverse. According to the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District, at the 2023 festival, 60% of the artists were female and non-binary and 48% were BIPOC and Asian.
Besides watching the artists hard at work, you can also get your own hands dirty and take part in free engagement activities, including metal-casting and letterpress printing. On Saturday, watch stage performances by Heart and Soul Drum Academy, zAmya Theater Project, and local hip-hop performances curated by Lewiee Blaze. And of course, it wouldn’t be a festival without food trucks.
New to this year’s festival is the partnership with indie artisan fair Jackalope Arts, which will provide over 100 local vendors. Shop for food items and a variety of art, ranging from jewelry to home decor to photography. (The full vendor list is on Jackalope Arts’s website.)
The Downtown Minneapolis Street Art Festival is organized by the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District. It was largely inspired by Chalkfest Maple Grove, which had its ninth annual festival in June.
“The Street Art Festival was initially in response to just chalk art becoming a growing phenomenon, kind of all over the country,” Huble says. “But Maple Grove was the first early and presently I think it’s the largest festival here in Minnesota. So we saw all the traction that they were getting, the great community engagement that it was bringing to the city, and we thought, why can’t we do something like that in downtown Minneapolis?”
And since Maple Grove, street art festivals have continued to gain popularity in the Twin Cities. Shawn McCann, street artist and co-founder of Chalkfest Maple Grove, is launching the West End Chalk Festival in St. Louis Park on July 20 and 21.
“People really enjoy the fact that these are created, they’re never the same,” McCann says. “So even if you went and saw a festival every other weekend, you’re not going to see the same art and you’re not going to see the same artists.”
Attendees of the West End Chalk Fest can watch artists create 2D and 3D chalk art and try their own hand at the art form in amateur and kid chalking zones. Some featured artists at the event include Erik Greenawalt (aka The Chalking Dad) from Pennsylvania and Alex Maksiov from Ukraine. These street art festivals can benefit local businesses and help bring attention to talented artists.
“I think from a community standpoint, [art festivals] bring an activity that really is family friendly that involves everybody. It’s not specific to a certain age range or anything,” McCann says. “And then it also brings a lot of business to communities as well because a lot of people travel from around the country, around the region to come and visit these.”
If you end up missing the West End Chalk Fest, you can also catch McCann at the Downtown Minneapolis Street Art Festival. There, he’ll be creating a 3D chalk installation at the IDS Center outdoor plaza. With all of the opportunities to immerse yourself in art, don’t let them slip away.
“People put in like dozens of hours into doing these chalk installations,” Huble says. “We leave them out there for as long as they are and if the rain takes them away, it kind of showcases the ephemeral nature of art, of beauty, of life.”