The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University opens its 2025-2026 exhibition season with a partnership with Memorialize The Movement (MTM), a Minneapolis organization that collects, preserves, and makes accessible the plywood protest murals created during the Minneapolis Uprising of 2020.
In its largest exhibition to date, MTM utilizes two distinct spaces on campus—the art gallery and The Frey Theater (a black box theater)—as storytelling devices to share the living history of the murals in their collection. The curators explain:
“Night and Day: Murals, Memory, and Movement explores the duality of protest and protection, grief and joy, destruction and creation during the Minneapolis uprising of 2020. Through a curated collection of plywood protest murals and archival materials, this exhibition captures a pivotal moment in the city’s history—one defined not only by resistance, but also by community care and collective action.
These murals are more than just artifacts of a turbulent time; they are living testaments to how communities organized, expressed grief, demanded justice, and protected one another when official systems failed. This exhibit invites viewers to reflect on the layered realities of that summer—what it meant to show up, hold space, and fight for a future rooted in justice.”
This exhibition continues through November 16. Leesa Kelly and Amira McLendon are St. Catherine University 2025–2026 Amy Marie Sears Memorial Visiting Curators in Residence.
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