The Cultural Districts Arts Fund is a new city initiative to help communities tell their stories through art and increase community collaboration. 

Seven cultural districts in Minneapolis — 38th Street, Cedar Avenue South, Central Avenue, East Lake Street, Franklin Avenue East, Lowry Avenue North and West Broadway — will receive money to promote the area’s culture through art, events, festivals and more. 

The Minneapolis Arts and Cultural Affairs Department Director Ben Johnson said each district will receive about $100,000 distributed into three categories: the Cultural District Ambassador Program, the Festival and Cultural Spaces Activation Program, and the Pop-Up Art and Cultural Activations Program. 

“We’re just really trying to trust artists and residents to know what’s best for their neighborhood,” Johnson said. “So we’re leaning into that as much as possible.” 

Johnson said anyone can apply for funding and a panel of community members will choose who receives funding. Applicants have a year to use the funds. 

“We decided to design a roster of programs for all seven districts that really helped inject a bunch of, sort of, creative vibrancy into those spaces but also to help support new narratives that would happen in these parts of the city as well as to stave off any kind of cultural displacement,” Johnson said. 

Continuing to create new opportunities for community art and entertainment in Minneapolis brings people to understand why they live here, Johnson said. 

“This is what we value in Minneapolis,” Johnson said. “We’re symbolic of what it really means to be at the forefront of innovation and creativity and to do that in a way that’s not just about downtown.” 

Ali Elabbady, a food critic and writer based in Minneapolis, said cultural districts hold a special place in his heart, specifically Cedar Avenue and Central Avenue, which he wrote about for Meet Minneapolis. Both areas have diverse cultures expressing themselves through food, art and businesses. 

“Both districts, in essence, really drive home that aspect of small business,” Elabbady said. “Not only that, but people of color, as well as Black and brown people owning small businesses and making it part of the interwoven fabric of the American dream.” 

Angela Two Stars, director of All My Relations Art (AMRA), a part of the Native American Community Development Institute program, said fencing surrounds where the former Wall of Forgotten Natives used to be in 2018. She worries about people’s perspectives on the American Indian Cultural Corridor on Franklin Avenue. 

“I think that our community and our children deserve to have that same feeling of beauty that we can show and create in our neighborhood,” Two Stars said. 

Two Stars, who will apply for funding, said she is planning an event to celebrate the 25 years of AMRA to highlight local artists and the impact it had on their careers. 

Minneapolis City Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw (Ward 4) said she received multiple ideas for using the funding in Lowry Avenue, a cultural district within her ward. Those ideas include adding artistic structures into the vacant lots while keeping the lots available for other uses. 

“Community is there, but I think what this funding does is build upon the community that exists, and it brings in new forms of community also,” Vetaw said.