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Last Updated: 2/10/2026
MN Arts Organizations Mobilizing Community Support and Creative Interventions in Response to ICE Occupation
Minnesota’s arts community is an essential civic anchor—holding space for care, dialogue, and collective response when it is needed most. In recent months, artists and arts organizations have stepped forward amid ICE activity across the state, mobilizing as first responders and cultural stewards. They have provided emergency resources, supported youth and families, distributed mutual aid, documented the impact of ICE brutality and violence, funded artists’ creative interventions, and opened spaces for connection, healing, and collective processing. Through this work, arts organizations have helped communities make sense of the ongoing harm and have countered the federal turbulence and misinformation with care, truth, and presence.
These frontline efforts have come at real cost: increased staffing and security needs, emergency planning, unexpected demands on space and resources, disrupted programming, and lost revenue. As artists and arts organizations continue to stand in solidarity with their communities, we invite you to consider a donation of any amount to help sustain, strengthen, and amplify this vital work—and to support the collective care and resistance unfolding across Minnesota.
We also encourage you to visit Minnesota Council of Nonprofits' resources page and Stand with Minnesota for additional organizations and mutual aid efforts you can support and actions you can take.
MINNEAPOLIS
Mixed Blood, a BIPOC-led space, is gathering a people's history of this moment. They are soliciting stories from the community, including interviews with someone from the community, poems or pictures or a piece of flash fiction that captures a feeling or a snapshot of what is happening right now in our communities. This project is emergent and will be adapted. As story tellers, Mixed Blood's intention is to capture and preserve the stories of this moment, as people want them told. They expect to post these stories as part of a gallery of responses to create a tapestry of experiences of the now. They are guided by the creative commons licensing (freely sharing the work) that others can use to create, study, make, remember. The organization is also hosting Say Your Rights workshops that we often pair with the Know Your Rights workshops, giving people practice in saying their rights out loud. They have a large demand for these and will be doing a “train the trainer” session for other theaters in town so that they can help meet the need.
The gallery, a Native American-led space, began serving as a community hub for observers and organizers to meet the challenges for Native American community that has been impacted by ICE. They are primarily focused on safety and security planning and space and materials for Native American artist and BIPOC artist interventions. Read Executive Director Angela Two Stars article to learn more about their work.
Pillsbury House, a Black founded and led organization, is providing creative space for artists and small arts initiatives in South Minneapolis, blocks from George Floyd Global Memorial and blocks from the Renee Good memorial site. Pillsbury House is providing space for a range of activities including workshops, organizing meetings, performances, printing-making workshops, healing circles, safety and security neighborhood planning meetings, legal support for families of people abducted, community radio, digital production, and mutual aid. Rapid response funding will support the staffing and material resources needed to do this work in an ongoing way.
This Rapid Response Fund is designed to help us raise $1.5 Million to help 250 families with housing support, utilities, medicine, and health care needs. This fund can also help with emergency needs as they arise. People are struggling because they fear going to work. As we continue to navigate this tense and scary moment with care and love, we will show up for our community in these ways because that is what being a loving and caring neighbor looks like. As we always have in our nearly 150 years of being part of our communities, we are here to help ensure radical care, love, and support.
Public Functionary is a BIPOC artist-led space that includes artist studios, exhibition, performance, and workshop space. To address urgent needs, Public Functionary is offering free weekly open house and community meals for artists and organizers. The events are designed to offer information, resources, opportunities to meet collaborators, and support for art projects that respond to the current moment. These gatherings help artists who may feel isolated and keep our community connected during uncertain economic times. With additional funding, we can maintain this much-needed stabilizing space for artists in Minneapolis.
Red Eye is a BIPOC and Queer artist-centered organization where artists, staff, and community form a relational collective, stewarding shared resources, relationships, and creative potential. Red Eye has been supporting in person and virtual space and programs, working to accommodate the safety of the artists involved. They have supported Monarca trainings and other safety focused events and well as 24/7 access to space to accommodate artists’ varied schedules. Red Eye has partnered with Powwow Grounds, which has been collecting supplies for people on the frontlines—those patrolling or serving as legal observers.
Soomaal House is a Minnesota-based Somali artists collective that works with students, emerging, and established artists find artistic community, mentorships, and opportunities. They are supporting Somali artists and working to ensure safety and access for the artists.
SAINT PAUL
Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) is a BIPOC ensemble company of TRAnsnational feminist dance artists who create and perform social justice work. They also provide space for the arts community to gather and movement opportunities as a mode of processing the impact of the ICE occupation. They are developing a project focused on love as public practice to spark the care and connectivity that lies on the other side of this traumatic moment. This experience will involve workshops engaging the community directly in the performance of the project.
Indigenous Roots Cultural Center (IRoots) is a coalition of artists, culture bearers, business owners, cultural groups and organizations dedicated to building, supporting and cultivating opportunities for and with Brown, Black, Native and Indigenous Peoples through cultural arts and activism. They offer space for artists to work, for community support and organizing and wellness and healing. IRoots is actively supporting families through mutual aid and culturally appropriate responses who had and continue to have direct encounters with ICE. While Indigenous Roots has been involved in immigration justice work and mutual aid for over a decade, the work has shifted into appropriate response initiatives last summer (2025) through the formation of an action network. The MniSota Community Action Network (MniCAN) is dedicated to supporting mutual aid and appropriate rapid response efforts across the nine regional areas of the state of Minnesota.
In Progress is a media arts organization for a broad network of artists committed to sharing stories, honoring diversity, and strengthening communities through the arts. They are supporting space for media production, development of care networks, strategizing support for families detained/impacted by ICE—they are home to many artists. They are currently organizing a care, resistance, and remembrance calendar of events, including youth, healing, food sharing, and occupation storytelling events.
This Black-led space is a home for BIPOC theater and additional activities for artists and the community responding to the challenges of this time. Penumbra is facilitating panel conversations, offering racial healing workshops, offering book groups to discuss banned books, and hosting drives for art supplies for families who are unable to leave their homes due to the occupation of DHS agents in the Twin Cities. Their focus is on healing, wellness, and learning opportunities through the arts.
Theater Mu, an Asian American theater, creates community, gives artists a place to be seen and accepted, shows audiences that Asian voices and experiences matter. As ICE continues to occupy MN, Southeast Asians (Laotian, Hmong, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Karen, Filipino) and Asian transnational adoptees are two of the many Asian sub-communities are being targeted, forcing thousands into a fear to leave their homes. Mu is developing a podcast series to provide a safe forum that is accessible, intimate, and immediate, featuring grassroots activists, small business owners, and artist/activists on both a local and national level. They will also join forces with TaikoArts Midwest to co-produce a project that revisits the experience of Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during WWII. This immersive event speaks directly to the moment of occupation and civil rights violations across our country.
RURAL MINNESOTA
Art of the Rural resources artists and culture bearers to build the field, change narratives, and bridge divides. The organization supports cultural exchange programs to develop the skills, networks, and capacity of rural and urban leaders to bridge divides and make change. They are hosting multiple opportunities, including podcasts/articles/digital storytelling platforms, book groups to foster relationships with Native and Indigenous communities in rural MN, artist engagement projects along the Mississippi River, and more intimately scaled in-person regional gatherings for artists and culture bearers.
Department of Public Transformation is a nonprofit organization that develops creative strategies for increased community connection, civic engagement, and equitable participation in rural places. They believe in the power of rural creativity in activating local solutions to address community challenges and opportunities. This organization was involved in creating a Community Safety Plan for rural Minnesota communities. They are deeply involved in supporting rural community creativity and bridge building.
STATEWIDE INITIATIVES
Artists As Witness: Forecast is offering 20 small grants of $1,000 each to Minnesota-based artists and culture bearers who are documenting what is happening to their communities, countering disinformation, and telling the lived, human stories and strength of Minnesota’s people. This documentation and storytelling are critical. What happens in Minnesota now will be lessons for others around the country and the world. Any additional funding that comes in will be used to expand and continue this grant. If you want to support the Artists As Witness grants: please include a dedication to 'Artists as Witness grants' with your donation.
The Yeego Action Grant offers grants for individual Native artists and culture bearers who need quick financial assistance for an artistic opportunity, emergency situation, and/or sudden unanticipated expense related to their art practice or business. First Peoples Fund will focus these funds on MN Native artists for the time being.
The Artists Respond: Safety in Neighbors program supports neighborhood-scale projects that help neighbors find sanctuary places in their communities where care, safety, and solidarity already live. Many immigrant, refugee, BIPOC, and working-class neighbors are living with increased fear, surveillance, and the threat of being questioned or displaced. At the same time, there are people, spaces, ideas, and networks that quietly hold things together. This program activates the local: neighbors, block clubs, apartment buildings, whisper networks, and local businesses, and asks artists to make it easier for neighbors to find resources, solidarity, and each other.
There are currently 137 pending projects, and 20 are up and running. Our plan is to continue this call, which is approving projects weekly through a statewide network of advisors, throughout the occupation. When our communities are able to start thinking about repair and recovery, this call will evolve to focus on artist-led healing and repair projects, still focused on small, neighborhood and community specific actions.
While small-business relief efforts are emerging, Springboard for the Arts recognizes from experience that many of these initiatives may not be relevant or accessible to artist micro-businesses (small, home-based, and/or solo businesses). These small businesses are an essential part of our culture and economy. Many of these businesses have had to pause operations or divert resources to advocate for their communities' needs.
The Creative Business Recovery Fund was created to respond to ongoing economic instability affecting artist micro-businesses, particularly those with limited access to capital and relief infrastructure. This fund will support 50 Minnesota micro-businesses and artists by providing $2,000 to help recover from months of lost sales and to reinvest in their creative businesses in preparation for the upcoming Spring/Summer season.
LINK AVAILABLE 2/12/2026
Artist Emergency Relief Fund Network is a statewide direct emergency relief for artists across MN. This fund is led by Springboard for the Arts and Minnesota’s Regional Arts Councils. Artist Emergency Relief Fund Network: If you want to support the Artist Emergency Relief Funds: please include a dedication to ‘Artist Emergency Relief Fund' with your donation.
Funders interested in supporting individual artist relief and response efforts should contact Springboard for the Arts: [email protected]
With technical assistance from Springboard, the Artists Emergency Relief Fund Network is a new locally rooted emergency relief fund that is up and running. The programs are having a lot of success reaching local artists across the state. Three of the programs have immediate need for additional emergency relief in their regions, including MRAC which is only able to fund about 30% of applicants currently. Our goal is to fund this network at capacity for 3 years for the 11 RAC-led programs, adding at least 1 additional partner which will establish and stabilize the system and provide a ready network to deliver emergency relief dollars during locally specific crises.