Hennepin Theatre Trust Announces Talk-It Hennepin, Running March Through June

Today, Hennepin Theatre Trust announced the launch of Talk-It Hennepin, a free, four-part series of public conversations and workshops bringing together today's foremost thinkers and professionals in city planning and urban design with Hennepin Avenue stakeholders. Running from March 8 into June 2012, the Talk-It series is part of the broader Plan-It Hennepin, a year-long initiative led by partners Hennepin Theatre Trust, Walker Art Center, Artspace and the City of Minneapolis. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the plan will re-imagine a stretch of this storied avenue as a revitalized cultural corridor from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden to the Mississippi River. 

The Talk-It conversations will range from the history of Hennepin Avenue to emerging cultural districts and global trends in urban planning, transit and public space. They will be paired with follow-up, interdisciplinary workshops conducted by Twin Cities' artists to help define values, vision and achieve goals. Honoring History: The Avenue through the Ages, the firstTalk-It event, is set for 7–9 p.m., Thursday, March 8 at the Minneapolis Central Library, tracing the Avenue's evolution from a Native American footpath to a modern thoroughfare. The correlating workshop will be held Saturday, March 10 from 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., also at the Library. The second Talk-It Hennepin event is Creative Urban Interventions-A Dialogue with Candy Chang, scheduled for 7–9 p.m., Thursday, April 26, at Walker Art Center. Chang is an artist, designer and urban planner who often combines street art with social activism.

Details about the final two Talk-It Hennepin conversation/workshops, scheduled for May and June, will be announced soon. For more information about Plan-It and Talk-It Hennepin visit hennepintheatretrust.org/plan-it.

Talk-It Hennepin-Conversation and Workshop Series 

Talk-It Hennepin: Honoring History-The Avenue Through the Ages

Thursday, March 8, 7–9 p.m.

Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall (Pohlad Room, 2^nd Floor)

Talk-It Hennepin kicks off with a panel of local historians and experts in Native history, transit and GLBT issues examining the stories and histories of Minneapolis' first street and gathering place. Discussion will range from Hennepin Avenue's roots as a Dakota footpath and a trading/transportation hub for fur, agricultural commodities and people, to its modern transformation and function within the city's evolving economy. Panelists include: Syd Beane, author and adjunct professor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College and a community organizer who is working on a documentary film about his famous Dakota Sioux uncle, Charles Alexander Eastman; Dorothy Bridges (moderator) Senior Vice President for Community Development and Outreach at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis; John Diers, a transit consultant and writer/researcher on transportation history based in the Twin Cities who is active in historic preservation; Kevin Murphy, Associate Professor in History at the University of Minnesota whose studies include gender, the history of sexuality and GLBT history; and Penny Peterson, historian/researcher at Hess Roise and Company who has published articles about local history and worked as an interpreter for the Minnesota Historical Society. 

Talk-It Hennepin Workshop: Honoring History

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