Polish American artist Piotr Szyhalski turned to drawing during the Covid-19 stay at home orders. Working in his basement, he responded to news reports about the pandemic by making incisive drawings that utilize sharply drawn humor to criticize America’s response to the coronavirus crisis. KFAI's Sheila Regan reports. 

Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Scarce Paper, Extreme Historical Phenomena

We’re still social distancing and we’re still making stuff. Some artists have changed what they make. Others have changed how they make it. KFAI’s Barb Abney hosts from home and shares an uplifting interview with Twin Cities hip-hop artist Nur-D, who just dropped an EP recorded entirely from his bedroom. We also hear a tender, slightly gloomy audio diary from Minneapolis poet Ed Bok Lee, who discusses skeletons and shares knock-knock jokes with his young daughter. It’s adorable and, you guessed it, poetic.

Support for MinneCulture comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Ep. 26: What Are You Making?

On March 5, 1978 in subzero temperatures, about 10,000 farmers marched across Pope County, Minn. in a staged funeral procession to mourn the death of Justice. The funeral, complete with horse-drawn hearse and giant puppets, was just one episode in the 6-year protest movement to stop the routing and construction of a high-voltage powerline through Western Central Minnesota.

With the help of archived audio from the Minnesota Historical Society's Oral History Project, KFAI's Charlotte Colantti shares this short history of rural civil disobedience.

Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Manure-Covered Farmers and Other Acts of Powerline Protest

Two Minnesota musicians, Amanda Weber and Natalie Pollard, are starting what is thought to be the first re-entry choir in the U.S. Pollard shares the ways music sustained her in prison and connected her with Weber. KFAI's Anna Stitt reports. (Music by Natalie Pollard and the Voices of Hope women's prison choir at the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Shakopee.)

Image: "Concertina Wire & Tower" by Steve Snodgrass is licensed under CC BY 2.0. "Sonata Music" by jrossol is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

KFAI's MinneCulture is made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.

Free In My Mind: Surviving Incarceration Through Music

As COVID Summer 2020 heated up, Minnesotans got creative about socially distant summertime events. Parks and outdoor recreation venues saw a surge in visitors and drive-in theaters are back in style. KFAI’s Paul Brohaugh took his family to Silverwood Park in St. Anthony, just north of Minneapolis, to see their version of a socially-distant outdoor movie.

Illustration by Ryan Dawes. Support for MinneCulture on KFAI from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

BYO Boat at Float-In Theater

Minneapolis musician Taylor Seaberg turned strife into music and healing. 

"I’m experimental. I go completely against the grain of what a lot of Minnesota music is. I'm a transplant as well," says Seaberg. 


Living blocks away from 38th and Chicago where George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis Police, Seaberg was in the "heart of the beast." They and their collaborators wanted to use their talents for change and needed a safe outlet to approximate community during the pandemic, so these artists cooked up an idea to perform a revolutionary, outdoor, socially-distant concert at the George Floyd memorial site. KFAI's Sheila Regan talked with Seaberg about the concert and the resulting community album that Seaberg produced, and their single, Pandemonium, featuring guest Kory LaQuess.

Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Illustration by Taylor Seaberg.

Taylor Seaberg and the Art of the Revolution

Ballet Co.Laboratory wants to change the way people think about ballet by changing ballet itself. That’s no easy task. The art form is full of tradition, which some people find stuffy and elitist. Plus, there’s this little thing called COVID happening. As Todd Melby reports, the St. Paul company is doing its best to challenge the status quo at a challenging time.

Support for MinneCulture comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Photo courtesy of Ballet Co.Laboratory.

The (Really Mean) Snow Queen Streams On Screen

When the future of an iconic music venue is on the line, artists and music lovers haven’t just stood around. Producer Colleen Cowie reports from Minneapolis, where a group of volunteers have created the First Love Project: a compilation album that gives back to the famed music venue, First Avenue. 

Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Illustration by Ryan Dawes.

First Love Project Supports First Ave Fam

African American singer songwriter Annie Mack does it all, from powerhouse blues to New Americana and beyond, highlighting her unique vocal presence and original songs. She released two new singles in 2020, Shadows of a Kingdom and Judge and Jury. Her new EP Testify will drop in January 2021. She is also featured in the book 50 Women in the Blues (Supernova Books 2020). This story was produced by Dixie Treichel. (Photo by Shelly Mosman)

MinneCulture on KFAI is made possible by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Fund.

Singer Songwriter Annie Mack Finds Her Truth in The Blues

Pi Bar infused the Twin Cities with an ecstatic, high energy jolt of queerness for the year and a half it was open. The bar was Dreamed up in 2006 and established in South Minneapolis in 2007. They catered to lesbians and queer women, but was also open to the entire LGBTQ scene, making its embrace of the transgender community explicit. In his recent memoir, “Chemically Enhanced Butch,” former Pi proprietor Ty Yule reflects on Pi’s brief but impactful existence in the Twin Cities. KFAI’s Sheila Regan reports.

Photo by Kim Thompson. Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Ty Yule Remembers Pi: “The Dyke Bar of Our Dreams”

MinneCulture arts, culture and history stories air on KFAI's "Listening Lounge" and at other times. We also record and produce concerts featuring local musicians in our "Live from Minnesota" series. In 2018, six(6!) MinneCulture stories won Page One awards from the Minnesota chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Funding made possible by a grant from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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