Cargill Gallery presents SEEN: In the Stacks

  • July 28, 2025

SEEN, an exhibition featuring seven installations of collaborative work between currently-incarcerated and Twin-Cities-based artists, activists, and academics is the latest exhibit in the Cargill Gallery at Minneapolis Central Library. The exhibit explores issues of incarceration, isolation, healing, and coming home. To bring healing to the cycle of harm, participants connect with their families, the community, and each other through this exhibition.

Visit the exhibit at the Cargill Gallery, located on the second floor of Minneapolis Central Library, from August 4, 2025, to September 28, 2025.

Related events

  • Opening reception events

    Writing and Poetry Workshop
    Saturday, August 9, 2025, 3-5 p.m. – Doty Board Room

    Authors and exhibiting artists Ronald “Bino” Greer II, Sarith Peou, and Von Johnson will join via Zoom from Minnesota State Prison to lead three writing and poetry engagements.

    Khi Tes Ceremony
    Saturday, August 9, 2025, 3:15-5 p.m. – Cargill Gallery

    Join artists Fong Lee and Kevin Yang for a Khi Tes ceremony, an important Hmong spiritual practice symbolizing connectedness, renewal, and blessing.

  • Words Matter: Showing Up for our Incarcerated Loved Ones
    Saturday, August 16, 2025, 1-2:30 p.m. – Doty Board Room

    Join us for a letter writing workshop where we come together to support our incarcerated loved ones. All are welcome—no prior experience needed.

  • Shredded Symbols: A Paper Pulping Workshop
    Saturday, August 23, 2025, 1-2:30 p.m. – Doty Board Room

    For part one of our New Narratives workshop, personal “pain papers,” such as a criminal record, court papers, divorce decrees, invoices with medical debt, etc. will be shredded, pulped, and stretched into new canvases.

  • New Narratives: A Pulped Paper Workshop
    Saturday, September 6, 2025, 1-2:30 p.m. – Doty Board Room

    In part two of our New Narratives workshop, you will work with pulped and dried paper. You will be guided through using the paper to create new narratives in poetry, painting, or portraiture. No prior experience needed.

  • Where You Are: Using Language to Empower Yourself and Others
    Saturday, September 13, 2025, 1-2:30 p.m. – Pohlad Hall and Robins, Kaplan, Miller, and Ciresi (RKMC) Community Meeting Room

    Join author Zeke Caliguiri as he reads excerpts from This is Where I Am: A Memoir, as well as new work. Following the reading will be an erasure poetry workshop with artist Han S., where participants will blackout or redact texts to create new "found" poetry. No prior experience necessary.

  • In Sight: The Path Forward
    Saturday, September 20, 2025, 1-2:30 p.m. – Pohlad Hall

    Join Dr. Kayla Richards of the Minnesota Justice Research Center and Restorative Justice Practitioner Christopher Sonny Melendez to discuss the urgent, overdue, and ultimately hopeful path forward to restorative justice in Minnesota.

These programs are funded with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. The exhibit and events are free and open to the public.

Presented in collaboration with We Are All Criminals (WAAC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to challenging society’s perceptions of what it means to be "criminal."