I’ve been meaning to send an update on what I’ve been doing since returning to the US. After taking some time to get settled, most of 2015 has been occupied with preparing for an exhibition that will finally be opening next month.

The show, titled Das Fundbuero – 1000 Little Things, opens Wednesday, November 18th in the Paul Watkins Gallery on the campus of Winona State University in Winona, Minn. The opening begins with a public lecture from 4-5pm followed by a reception in the gallery.

I have really enjoyed developing the installation, as it’s given me the opportunity to process the experiences and information I collected in Weimar and Leipzig during six years of projects dealing with East German history. Watkins Hall is a mid-sixties modernist building with a terrazzo floor and glass doors that makes a great space for the installation, which combines objects and interviews collected while working on Das Fundbuero with contemporary objects from the US and newly built sculptural components.

I have been thinking a lot about the role of nostalgia and the desire for a simple historical narrative, as well as questions about documentation and presentation of participatory artwork after the fact. The installation lets me work with these ideas more directly than was possible sometimes in the participatory projects in Leipzig. I’m looking forward to seeing the complete installation, since my studio is only big enough to work on segments of it at a time. Even better, as I continue to work, I continue to have more ideas for how to interpret and present Das Fundbuero  – who knew making objects would continue to be part of my artistic process.

The show is supported in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, or to make it all legal:  Monica Sheets is a fiscal year 2015 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Thank you Minnesota taxpayers!

In September, I began an 18-month residency with Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts in Fridley, Minn. The arts center is about 6 miles from my apartment in Minneapolis, but it’s location in Manomin Park at the confluence of Rice Creek and the Mississippi River makes it feel much farther away. One of my goals during the residency is to adapt and expand the sort of participative work I was doing in Germany. I am particularly interested in how Fridley lacks a clear civic “center”, though there are lots of beautiful parks and shopping centers with idiosyncratic tenants like an honorary Romanian Consulate and a great Bosnian supermarket. I am interested in how this de-centeredness affects people’s sense of community and identification with the city. The residency culminates in an exhibition at the arts center in early 2017.

I’ll be posting images of 1000 Little Things on facebook and my website after the opening. If you’re in the area, I hope you can visit the exhibition in Winona or come see me at Banfill-Locke.