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REDESIGNED MN ARTISTS CONNECTS REGIONAL

ARTISTS TO INTERNATIONAL ART COMMUNITY

Minneapolis, November 7, 2014 With a fresh look and full, pixel to page redesign, Mn Artists, a trailblazing regional arts platform, offers a full complement of new tools, resources, editorial content and programming, online and off, to inform, promote, and connect Midwestern art, artists, cultural organizations and audiences well into the future.

Mn Artists Program Director, Jehra Patrick, comments on the redesign of MN Artists, Were very aware of the ways that artists work and how artistic practices have evolved and diversified; we comingle, have slash-titles, and cross-train. We also know that artists have access to a broad array of online tools where they have multiple presences and identities. We want to see what happens when we all come back together. We want to co-create value with Midwestern artists and make what were doing visible through this platform.

Mn Artists was launched in 2001 as joint project of the McKnight Foundation and the Walker Art Center, as a first-of-its-kind digital gathering place for artists. Vickie Benson, arts program director, The McKnight Foundation, comments, We want to congratulate Mn Artists on the completion of this large project, and we look forward to its reception by artists and its impact on our artistic community. Minnesota thrives when its artists thrive.

Improved features of the redesign include:

An easily searchable database of art and artists, arts organizations, articles, events and opportunities.

Original arts writing is front and center on the new website, with an expanded scope, putting regional and nationally-focused writers, stories, and artists side by side.

The website is organized by way of content filters which mirror real artistic communities, activities, and interests and foster crossdisciplinary collaboration

Artists have access to free professional development and presentation tools, like portfolio and resume builders

Artists can connect their Mn Artists portfolios with their other social media platforms, audio, video and photo sharing sites to integrate their various web presences with ease

New social features in the website allow users to filter content based on individual artistic interests and to follow other artists and writers for a customized news feed with the work, news, and happenings most relevant to them.

Mn Artists boasts the regions only user-submitted, multidisciplinary arts calendar

Conversations around art are what set Mn Artists apart from similar databases, and the rebuild positions original arts writing at the center of this redesign. Editor-in-Chief, Susannah Schouweiler, sees strong writing as a tool to put local artists in dialogue with issues and work beyond the states borders. She shares, For the last couple of years, Ive shifted the emphasis in the overall editorial part of the site away from ephemeral, hyper-local and event-specific coverage. Ive encouraged our writers to take a wider angle on the work being made here, to look up and out, and to frame their criticism with ideas and trends percolating outside the region.

Mn Artists preceded social media sites like MySpace and Facebook as a place for artists to gather online and has long provided artists with a free web presence -- before open-source blogging and website building tools like Wordpress had been conceived. Mn Artists has also served as a premier source for arts writing and journalism in the Midwest, commissioning well over 1000 articles on the local cultural scene since its inception more than a decade ago.

Even after more than a decade, Mn Artists remains a uniquely collaborative creation: a continually evolving product of institutional stewardship and community-driven design.

A living archive of artistic activity in the state covering 13 years and counting, it has remained a highly trafficked and centralized location for artists to connect with one another, find their next opportunity, and read in-depth, regional arts coverage.

The redesign project was headed by Patrick: the websites visual design was produced by the Walker Art Centers Design and New Media departments, and the platforms infrastructure was developed in Drupal by the Indianapolis Museum of Arts IMA Labs. The rebuild project was made possible through the Walker Art Centers receipt of a National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This National Leadership grant recognizes mnartists.org as an innovative model for engaging communities through technology. With this in mind, the project was conceived around open source toolsets, with the idea that the new platform and its component parts might be adapted and replicated nationally, within other communities.

Mn Artists remains, first and foremost, an open platform by which area artists may showcase their work and achievement, and connect to audiences, patrons and each other. Armed with a newly redesigned website and a variety of artist-friendly online tools, expanded editorial offerings and offline programming mnartists.org is poised to connect artists, critical coverage, and events that connect Midwestern cultural scene to a wider audience, and broader conversations, for years to come. Mn Artists will announce a full suite of live, offline programs this winter.

About Mn Artists

A program of the Walker Art Center, Mn Artists is dedicated to improving the quality of art, artists and art-centered dialogue from the Midwest into a relevant national conversation, though a dynamic online community, responsive arts writing and criticism, and creating access to, and connections with, collaborators, influencers and the public. Mn Artists is made possible by generous support by the McKnight Foundation.

About IMLS

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nations 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development.

About IMA Labs

The IMA Lab is a multi-disciplinary, award-winning web design and development consultancy that serves the Indianapolis Museum of Arts mission and the greater cultural sector. Our team represents a wide range of technical expertise and backgrounds, including digital strategy, information architecture, branding, web design & development, custom software development, mobile & iPhone applications, and deployment/systems integration. The IMA Lab is dedicated to the creation of open-source software and aims, through our work, to continually benefit the entire cultural technology community.

Mn Artists is a project of The McKnight Foundation and the Walker Art Center.

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