ABOUT US
We support artist entrepreneurs, creative businesses, and arts and cultural nonprofits to ensure the growth and sustainability of cultural expression and creativity throughout the city.
Photo: Ian Plant
Our work helps the City of Minneapolis strengthen the health and well-being of every neighborhood.
Photo: Wing Young Huie
ELEVATING underrepresented creative workers and engaging underserved communities
The goals of equity and inclusion drive all of our efforts. We recruit artists and creative practitioners from underrepresented backgrounds, and we engage underserved audiences and communities through our programs, activities and events. We believe the arts and creativity belong to all residents.
Photo: Caroline Yang
SUPPORTING creative enterprises
We provide broad-based business support to creative organizations experiencing difficulty in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. With funds received from the American Rescue Plan, we offer support through funding, capacity-building and planning assistance.
Photo: Northrup King Building
COLLABORATING with City departments
To help the City end racial inequities in its policies, processes and practices, we create partnerships between City staff and community artists through our Creative CityMaking program. The goal of each partnership is to develop a creative collaboration that leads to change at the City.
Photo: Caroline Yang
DEVELOPING arts and culture policy
We develop the City’s policies around arts, culture and the creative economy. And we integrate the creative sector into other areas of the City’s comprehensive planning, such as housing, transportation and public spaces. We want every corner of the city to benefit from creative innovation and placemaking.
Photo: Justin Sengly
RESEARCHING the economics of the creative sector
We undertake comprehensive research into the creative sector’s revenues and workforce impacts. We also dive deeply into specific topics such as racial and gender equity and workspace needs and affordability.
Photo: Ed Bock
COVID-19 and the creative sector
The coronavirus pandemic continues to have a devastating impact on the creative sector. A 2020 study by Americans for the Arts showed that 62% of artists and creative workers were fully unemployed, while 95% reported income losses.* Also in 2020, the Minnesota Council for Nonprofits projected that up to 60% of the state’s nonprofits, many of them arts and cultural organizations, would close by the end of the year.**
Unemployed
Income losses
Nonprofits closed
Since the beginning of the crisis, we’ve advocated for the creative sector at the national, state and local levels by:
Requesting and providing initial emergency funds for artists and arts organizations
Researching and sourcing support programs
Sharing information through webinars and one-on-one conversations
Pursuing resources and policy solutions for short- and long-term recovery
*AftA (2020). “First to Close. Last to Open.” COVID-19’s Impact on the Arts: Research Update June 15, 2020. New York City, Americans for the Arts.
**MCN (2020). Minnesota Nonprofit Economy Report: COVID-19 Impact Update. St. Paul, Minnesota, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits.
Office hours
Key staff members and consultants are available for conversations by phone or video. You must make an appointment. See the hours below, then email the individual directly to arrange your call.
Addy Gonzalez
Executive Manager of Arts
Addy.Gonzalez@minneapolismn.gov
Tor Chavarria
Program Manager, Arts & Cultural Affairs
Tor.Chavarria@minneapolismn.gov
Email to arrange a time.
Photo: Jeremiah Bey
Arts & Cultural Affairs, leadership and staff
As practicing artists and skilled administrators, our staff and team of consultants bring valuable field experience, local knowledge and relationships to their work at the City.
Benjamin (Ben) Johnson comes to Minneapolis from Beverly Hills, California, where he served as arts and culture manager. Before that, he was the director of performing arts for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Johnson’s experience includes leadership roles in arts and culture at UCLA, the nonprofit foundation United States Artists Inc., University of Minnesota’s Northrop Concerts and Lectures, the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Johnson received a bachelor’s and master’s in arts administration from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Winona.
Addy Gonzalez comes to Minneapolis from Los Angeles, California, where is was the co-founder and co-director of 11:11 Projects, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to empowering communities through the arts. 11:11 Projects transformed the cultural landscape of the San Fernando Valley through its 13 years of public art, educational, exhibition and live event programs.
Addy has more than fifteen years experience working in the non-profit arts sector. She focuses on the intersection of cultural development, policy, and arts accessibility for communities. The Los Angeles City Council and the Public Works Department awarded Addy with certificates of recognition as a Latina woman in the arts. She was named an Impact-Maker to Watch in 2020 by City Impact Labs.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Addy grew up in southeast LA and moved to the San Fernando Valley at age 18. In her early career, Addy worked as drafter and designer for T.W. Layman Associates, a commercial architectural firm before transitioning her career to the arts. She interned at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach and was a board member of Arts in Education Aid Council. Addy worked with the City of Los Angeles Council District 7 as its Cultural Development consultant where she created a comprehensive public art development plan specifici to the Van Nuys corridor. She is an alumni of the Arts for LA Activate Cultural Policy program and is the inaugural fellow of the Arts for LA Laura Zucker Fellowship for Policy and Research.
Addy received her B.A. in Art History, Criticism and Conservation from UCLA and has an M.A. in Arts Administration from Drexel University. She’s dedicated her career to providing structure and support systems that ensure the transformational power of art is an integral part of healthy communities.
Arts & Cultural Affairs team of consultants
Our team of skilled consultants support the work of city staff and expand our knowledge, capacity and relationships.
Brenda Kayzar, PhD
Urbane DrK Consulting
Urban, Community and Arts Strategies
Dr. Brenda Kayzar is the collaborative strategist and founder of Urbane DrK Consulting. Through research-based strategies informed by community, Brenda provides planning and advocacy leadership to government and nonprofit organizations.
Her work focuses on revitalization planning, gentrification concerns, the creative economy, and community engagement practices.
She draws on knowledge in economic development, urban policy, planning and design, and social and environmental justice to understand and evaluate complex urban issues, and seeks to inform and enable equitable and sustainable outcomes.
Meena Mangalvedhekar is first an immigrant woman, wife of a brave transwoman and then many other beings such as an artist, maker, educator, organizer and manager. Meena has experience working with national and local clientele as a project manager and public art manager. Her network based project ramp up and management process is designed to empower teams and creative minds to implement meaningful projects in the community. As a sought-after advisor in the Twin Cities arts community, Meena’s focus is on connecting community and place.
Meena received GD-Art from Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya and BFA from University of Minnesota, and has sustained multidisciplinary visual art practice through public art research, social intervention, participatory urban projection, and public installations.
Liz Pangerl
Casa Valencia, llc.
Experiential Design | Branding
Liz Pangerl is the owner and founder of Casa Valencia, llc., an experiential design office in Minneapolis. Her work focuses on developing and executing strategic brands, creating relative multicultural, multilingual community experiences, and building multi-dimensional interactive solutions that empower audiences, consumers and communities.
Her creative and strategic solutions are informed by a basic belief in the power of story to evoke an emotive response while leveraging the beauty of design to enrich the experience. Through ideation and execution, and in partnership with creative and marketing teams, she has helped shape the customer experience, influenced impressions and connected desire to actionable decision-making.
Originally from California of Mexican-American descent, she is a proud bilingual Latina, whose work expresses an awareness and understanding of multicultural points of view, while her bi-cultural influences add versatility and depth to her creative solutions. She is a recipient of numerous awards including two works in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress.