For many people, the federal immigration activity in Minnesota creates fear and raises urgent questions about safety and belonging. For others, it’s a call to witness, document and respond. 

Artists are often among the first to translate historic moments like this — to give shape to emotions that can feel overwhelming or hard to name. Through poetry, visual art, murals, performance, and music, they help communities process what’s happening in real time. 

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with a poet, a ceramic artist and a graphic artist about what they’re seeing, feeling and creating in this moment.

Guests:

• Junauda Petrus is the Poet Laureate for the city of Minneapolis. She is an author, playwright, filmmaker and co-founder of the experimental artist collective, Free Black Dirt. She is the author of the award-winning young adult novel, “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,” and the children’s book, “Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers?”   
• Terresa Hardaway is the owner and creative director of Blackbird Revolt, a social justice-based design studio in Minneapolis. She’s an associate professor of graphic design and the director of Design Justice in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. She is also the owner of Black Garnet Books in St. Paul. 
• Sayge Carroll is an artist and co-founder of Mudluk Pottery Studio in Minneapolis.