Activate Rural Workshop: Safe, Accessible, and Inclusive Creative Places
Location: Virtual - Zoom
Date + Time: Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 12PM - 1:30PM CST
Join Department of Public Transformation (DoPT) for our next Activate Rural Workshop to hear two rural artists and activators share stories of cultivating creative places of connection for their communities. Terms like safe, accessible, and inclusive are used often to describe spaces working towards being welcoming to everyone in a community, but these words can also be polarizing, misinterpreted, and/or subjective. In this workshop, participants will explore how two rural organizations define and practice these terms, navigate nuances of community engagement work, and address the challenges and opportunities that come with fostering creative places in their communities. Register below for an inspirational panel discussion moderated by Sarina Otaibi, Activate Rural Program Director, DoPT, with the following guest speakers:
Melissa Wray is the Director of Mainspring in Caledonia, MN (pop. 2,794). Mainspring is a nonprofit community arts organization bringing new life to an old Presbyterian church building. It is a community hub that offers accessible and inclusive arts programming to provide meaningful experiences for residents to connect, inspire and be inspired, and grow in a safe space.
Anthony M. is the co-owner of Atelier@1901 in Plainview, MN (pop. 3,527). Atelier@1901 is a unique community gathering space where people can come together to experience events such as music, arts, food, and culture. It provides innovative programming and community building meant to inspire new ideas and experiences in a safe, welcoming, and inclusive setting.
This virtual workshop is free, but registration is required. For workshop and registration questions, please contact Benjamin Domask-Ruh, Activate Rural Program Coordinator, at benjamin@publictransformation.org.
This workshop is a part of the Activate Rural Public Workshop Series, workshops and sessions designed to offer support, peer learning, and resources to creative entrepreneurs, artists, organizations and small business owners with creative physical places of connection based in rural Minnesota communities and the Native nations that share this geography, with a population of 20,000 or less. This program is supported, in part, by the State of Minnesota through a grant from The Office of Small Business Development, Department of Employment and Economic Development.