Artists engage residents in imagining the region’s future

Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2024

A group of nine artists from the seven-county metro region working in a variety of media engaged residents young and old during the public comment period for the Draft Imagine 2050 regional development guide.  

The Metropolitan Council asked the artists to reinterpret the Imagine 2050 planning process and their vision for the future of the region in their chosen artistic medium. At a variety of public events in September and October, these artists engaged people in drawing, flag-making, sound immersion, and other modes of expression and imagination.  

Following is a series of photos from a few of those events. 

Woman and child at table staffed by two Met Council employees fill out a postcard.

People stand around a table with paints and paintbrushes, painting tiles in bright colors.

Three large, brightly colored visual panels made of square tiles painted by residents who attended one of the Art+Policy events.

At table, children choose shapes to place on bright blue flags and place them with painter’s tape to the fabric. A man sews the flags on a sewing machine at the end of the table.

Man in baseball cap talks with woman using felt-tip pen to draw on multi-color poster that says, “Housing is a human right.”

Charlie Zelle stands with microphone in front of two colorful Metro Transit buses.

Two men and one child paint on a long mural, about four feet high, next to a sidewalk in the Raymond/University Avenue area of Saint Paul.

Boy leans over a vase sitting on a tree stump to hear the recorded sound coming out of it.

Woman plays saxophone at the shore of Silverwood Lake while another woman takes a photo of her.

Bus and rail car wraps inspire imagining the region’s future 

In addition to the community engagement artists, the Met Council hired four visual artists to create large murals for wrapping on buses and light rail trains. The colorful work highlights the Met Council’s policymaking in parks, transportation, water resources, and housing and land use. See photos of their work. 

The public comment period for the Draft Imagine 2050 regional development guide is now closed. Over the next few months, Met Council staff and policymakers will consider the comments and assess additional changes to the guide ahead of final consideration for adoption in February 2025. Follow upcoming committee discussions. 

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