Impact Stories 2019
Stories and stats illustrate Mia’s impact on visitors and communities. Work made possible by your generosity. Here are some of the ways your financial contributions are helping Mia inspire wonder through the power of art
Art is Family
Baby Amelie was just two weeks old when she made her first visit to Mia. Her mother, Courtney, had been nervous about venturing out with a newborn. What if Amelie cries? How am I going to feed her?
Art is Perspective
This summer, Mia held its first “empathy tours.” Designed by the museum’s Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts (CEVA), the tours may seem like any other school visit: students pass from one gallery to the next, study artworks, and discuss them.
Art is Community
Joe Horton grew up in Milwaukee, studied psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, and gravitated to the Twin Cities, where he has established himself as a multidisciplinary force. Rap music, theater, fiction writing, film directing—he does them all, often with the help of a loyal crew. “It all feels like one thing to me,” he says. “Art is simply the way for me to explore alternative narratives of reality.”
Art is Learning
To lose mobility, to lose companionship, to lose touch—too often, aging can be isolating. It can make you feel invisible, even to yourself. Mia’s “creative aging” workshops are creative and social outlets for people over 60.
Art is Purpose
Nils Heymann was a teenager when he fled the civil war in El Salvador, along with his mother, sister, brother, and other family members. They came to St. Paul, where his aunt was the first school principal of Latinx descent in Minnesota. And then he fell silent.
Art is Story
When Mia began planning an exhibition of art by Native women, artist Dyani White Hawk was among the first people consulted.
White Hawk grew up in Wisconsin, negotiating her identity as a woman of mixed Lakota and European ancestry—a quest that shaped her early art.