Poho Posit, a neighborhood based online platform and public installation investigating and reimagining daily posts on an online community forum. Hand rendered animations, hand rendered interactive online map of Powderhorn Park Neighborhood, topographic rendering of Powderhorn Park Neighborhood as projection map, and an interactive website archive of community dialogue.
The Rolling Revelry was a mobile karaoke platform that traveled the Twin Cities from 2013-2018. It traveled bike paths, sidewalks, city streets, and underpaths in search of willing singers.
The Norae Shanty was developed as part of the 2005 Art Shanty Projects as a space to explore intimate connection through song. There have been multiple iterations of the Norae Shanty including; the original on-ice installation (2005-2008), a mobile version based on Oahu and the University of Hawai’i Manoa (2008), and a semi-permenant version based in South Minneapolis (2008-2015).
About the mobile engagement tool.
“Our Past” a 140 foot cranky that educates the public about how our city came to be, and the impacts of racially discriminatory policies throughout our cities development.
“Our Future” a 75 foot cranky that educates the public about present day challenges and opportunities for public policy, and how public policy recommendations can shape policy (through an equity lens) within the final 2040 comprehensive plan.
Imagining Equity is a mobile engagement tool commissioned by the City of Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development Department.
Imagining Equity traveled to public parks, community events, and neighborhood convenings across the City of Minneapolis to invite residents to:
- learn about the history of how Minneapolis came to be.
- learn about how the voices, experiences, and ideas of residents can inform public policy. Create artful written and visual responses as policy recommendations.
- learn how the Citiy’s comp planning process works.
One Another – a mobile portrait making platform that invited stranges into conversation and the act of seeing, looking, and drawing one another. I designed and constructed it to be a fully collapsable two-sided drawing desk built on a bicycle trailer. From 2013 to 2020 it has traveled to public parks, libraries, festivals, rural communities, and the streets and sidewalks of the Twin Cities and Philly. I have had the honor of drawing and being in conversation with over 1,200 individuals during the span of this project.
ILLUMINATE THE LOCK:RETURNING THE RIVER
BY MIKE HOYT, DAMEUN STRANGE, AND DIVER VAN AVERY WITH RITIKA GANGULY
SEPTEMBER 20, 21, 22 – 2018
UPPER SAINT ANTHONY FALLS LOCK AND DAM
A HEADING
A night of poetry, projection, and music will illuminate a future where both rivers and people are liberated, where we celebrate wildness, and where we practice reciprocal relationships between all bodies of water, including one another’s.
Returning the River tells the story of a daughter born into a time of walls whose life is intrinsically linked to the life of a paddlefish. Participants will take in visual projections on the water by Mike Hoyt, a soundscape composed by Dameun Strange and a story written and narrated by Molly Van Avery from a boat in the Lock chamber and sung by Ritika Ganguly from above. Come listen and sing along. Hold water drawn up from below, imbue it with blessings for descendants, and then pour it back into the river to make its way towards liberation.
Read an interview with the artists here.
Illuminate the Lock is a program that uses the 49 foot tall chamber of Upper Saint Anthony Falls Lock & Dam as a platform for artistic intervention. Each night of programming is free and open to the public.
Presented by Northern Lights.mn, Mississippi Park Connection, and the National Park Service with support from St. Anthony Falls Heritage Board and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Louis & Elizabeth Moore: Willing to Cross the Line. 48″x72″, Acrylic on canvas, 2022
I was commissioned by Free the Deeds to interview and produce two large-scale portraits of familes in North and South Minneapolis that have experienced and overcome discriminatory housing policies and practices. These portraits were displayed in conjunction with Free the Deeds public engagement activities in 2022-2023.
For more information, please visit the main
Paris Ford & Margie Sudduth Ford: The Power of Place 48″x72″, Acrylic on canvas, 2022
A solo canoe constructed in 2023 using plans from MBW Boats. I wrote a full review of the design for small boats monthly
Hanabata Days is a graphic memoir that explores the unexpected reunion of a father and son, 47 years after separation.The diasporic story unfolds visually over the span of 60+ years navigating shifting geographic and cultural dissonance, from pre-tourism Hawai’i to present day Middle America. Its central characters’ hidden pasts are made visible to one another after searching for answers compelled by hope, premonition, the stars, currents, and the introduction of ancestral coordinates unlocked via shared genetic data.How do two familial strangers proceed forward and make meaning together? What possible pasts can be known and never known? What secrets should remain buried? And is their path to redemption intricately dependent on one another? Hanabata Days connects two lives impacted by different forms of colonization, silence, and ambiguous longing. Each seeking to reckon with their complex pasts towards reclamation.
Interview with Haley Radke: 09/29/23 produced by Adoptees On.
Adoptees On: The podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience.
- Publisher : Michael Hoyt (May 24, 2022)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 160 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0578290987
- ISBN-13 : 978-0578290980
- Dimensions : 6.63 x 0.43 x 10.25 inches
Dreamsland is a site specific community led public space that invites people to explore equitable land stewardship and practice creative neighboring. Dreamsland is an open platform where neighbors host gatherings and workshops, organize community action, share meals, incubate and test initiatives, and form deeper connections. Dreamsland will return to Lakota ownership on or before 2040.
Dreamsland open for activation year round. Over 200 events, gatherings, and initiatives have been convened by residents and artist organizers including;
the TRCSTR cohort, Twin Cities Sex Workers Collective, CANDO, Plant-Grow-Share, HECUA, Centra Area Graphic Art Collective, Creatives After Curfew, the Art Blocks initiative, Free Black Dirt, among others. Dreamsland can be reserved by calling: (six-one-two) 524-9407.
This film was made by students in the HECUA program Making Media, Making Change in partnership with Saint Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN). 2016