Resting Places, Active Spaces: On Mia’s Partnership with Lakewood Cemetery

By Tara Kaushik

June 15, 2026—A cemetery doesn’t seem like an obvious place for an artist-in-residence program. But Amanda Luke, Lakewood Cemetery’s community programs manager, has found starting one not only fitting but necessary.

“We find there aren’t a lot of places where it feels right to create art related to grief and death,” she says. “Sometimes it can be a little jarring or not feel right for a space. But we’ve had upwards of 150 applications for the program, and
I think I’ve only had two or three in the past two years that weren’t in some way related to grief or memorialization or remembrance. It tells us that there really is a need for a space to have those conversations and for artists to encourage those conversations.”

Now in its second year, the program connects the cemetery to the vibrant creative community of the Twin Cities, while offering a conduit for artists and visitors to process their grief.

An appreciation for art’s spiritual and psychological benefits is just one of a few things Mia has in common with Lakewood Cemetery. Established in the late 19th century (Lakewood predates the museum by about 50 years), they’re both local landmarks that share a commitment to offering the community accessible spaces to find solace, meaning, and beauty.

It’s made for a natural, long-lasting partnership, with Lakewood providing generous support to Mia for more than a decade, and even recently participating as an Art in Bloom commercial floral artist.

Mutual Friends

Many of the artists and patrons whose names grace Mia’s galleries are laid to rest at Lakewood. Arts and Crafts designer John Scott Bradstreet, whose “Duluth Room” is a favorite among Mia’s Period Rooms, is a permanent resident of Lakewood. So are Francis Cranmer Greenman, the celebrated portrait painter, and Robert Koehler, the painter and educator who once led the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts (now MCAD). There’s also Myron Kunin, who served for more than 35 years on Mia’s board, and whose visionary collection of 20th-century American art is on long-term loan to the museum.

Art Actually Is All Around Us

Lakewood is effectively a 250-acre outdoor art museum. It was founded at the height of the American garden cemetery movement, when cemeteries went from being dark, cramped, urban places to parklike garden spots marked by sophisticated landscape design. Influenced by 19th-century Romanticism, they became spaces of beauty.

At Lakewood, visitors can walk through a timeline of architectural history—literally, thanks to the many tours on offer. Symbols of various movements are visible throughout the grounds (think mourning figures in Grecian robes, pyramids, obelisks, soaring columns, and looming archways).

Lakewood also houses one of the finest examples of Byzantine mosaic tilework in the country in its historic Memorial Chapel. Its modern Garden Mausoleum, built in 2012, was among the first of this style in the United States.

Creative Communing

Both Lakewood and Mia function as third spaces, areas where people can freely gather outside of work and home. Their programming activates their campuses, preventing these historic institutions from remaining static. This year, the two artists in Lakewood’s artist-in-residence program are using the landscape to explore loss and life.

With their outdoor participatory installation “En Duelo (In Grief),” Cándida González explores how people can grieve individually and collectively in public spaces. Visitors are invited to add pictures and letters of their loved ones to communal altars. They’re given a quiet, communal space to explore their grief.

Alyssa Rose Gregory weaves together art and science with a focus on the “living community” of lichen. Working with local lichenologist Tanner Barnharst, she plans to create an interactive booklet that “brings appreciation to an often-overlooked organism, which thrives on the headstones of Lakewood Cemetery.”

During a past arts class at Lakewood, Luke, the cemetery’s community programs manager, met a few folks whose spouses are buried on the grounds. Their time in the class had broadened their associations with the cemetery. “This is a place where they’ve memorialized and grieved their spouse, and it’s also become a place where they’ve made friends and had fun,” she says. “They’ve been able to connect to the space in a completely different way. And I think that’s part of the healing.”

Learn More

On September 18 and 19, 2026, Lakewood Cemetery hosts its annual Lantern Lighting Celebration. It’s an evening for all to gather with family, friends, and community to honor and remember their late loved ones. Learn more, and check out the Lakewood Cemetery calendar of events for more upcoming programs, tours, and memorial ceremonies.