Activate Rural Storytelling Project: Mni Sota Arts
The new Mni Sota Arts space in downtown Redwood Falls, MN
The Community
Redwood Falls, Minnesota, is a small town located in the bucolic Minnesota River valley. Like many small towns in southwestern Minnesota, the local economy is driven by agriculture and manufacturing, with small businesses lining the historic downtown district. The community is the county seat of Redwood County, which is home to the Lower Sioux Indian Community, a federally recognized tribal nation and part of the Mdewakanton Band of Dakota.
Redwood Falls is known for its scenic beauty and access to nature, boasting the largest municipal park in the state of Minnesota, Ramsey Park. The region is also known for its centrality to the US-Dakota War of 1862, when Ramsey Park’s namesake, former Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey, declared that “the Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.” This led to a devastating succession of forced marches, imprisonment, bounties, and exile for Native people–all at the hands of the State. (source)
The Context
Today, Ramsey Park signage includes the Dakota name of the park, Caŋŝayapi, which translates to “where they paint the trees red.” Creating visibility of the Dakota story–both the history of State-sponsored brutality towards Native people, and the contemporary celebration of its rich language, food, and artistic traditions–is central to the mission of Mni Sota Arts and their new space in downtown Redwood Falls.
Mni Sota Arts began as a mobile resource center founded by Anne O’Keefe Jackson, an artist and an enrolled member of the Lower Sioux Indian Community. The affectionately-named “art bus” provides traditional materials such as brain tanned hides and porcupine quills to Indigenous artists in rural areas. This work of connecting artists to materials, events, audiences, and each other created a vibrant community around Mni Sota Arts, and ultimately inspired Anne to start a food truck business with her partner called Wanna Wotapi that could provide catering services and support the non-profit work of Mni Sota Arts.
The Opportunity
The momentum around these two mobile units dedicated to Native culture inspired Anne and her team to find a physical space that could offer a platform for artists to showcase their work and and more deeply engage the public. As Mni Sota Arts entered the Activate Rural Learning Lab cohort in 2023, Anne purchased a former cafe building in downtown Redwood Falls, MN to create the first permanent home for Mni Sota Arts. The vision was to create a gallery and gathering space to showcase, support, and connect artist-entrepreneurs, culture bearers, and residents of the Lower Sioux Indian Community and surrounding area, creating opportunities for storytelling, communing over food, and learning traditional skills.
Take a tour of downtown Redwood Falls and Mni Sota Arts’ new building as they embark on a series of renovations (filmed during the Activate Rural site visit in 2023).
The Activation
Mni Sota Arts started their activation journey with a massive renovation of their space—filling 10 roll-away dumpsters with debris, old food equipment, and furniture from the former cafe business. During the initial planning phase, Mni Sota Arts was awarded a grant from the Blandin Foundation that allowed them to move forward with exterior and interior building renovations. The exterior was restored to the original brick facade, with the original entrance and window layout put back into place. The interior renovations exposed the original tin ceiling, brought in new lighting, added ADA accessible bathrooms, replaced damaged flooring, and created a new kitchen space to be used for food-centric events and as prep space for Wanna Wotapi.
The Transformation
The transformation of the Mni Sota Arts building is a powerful demonstration of rural revitalization. It is now a welcoming professional gallery and gathering space, representing what is believed to be the first storefront in downtown Redwood Falls that centers Native culture. Like all renovation projects, there were unexpected issues and costly decisions to make, but luckily Mni Sota Arts was able to work with their partners, including the Southwest Initiative Foundation who refinanced their loan to support necessary renovations. The building received its occupancy license and held a soft opening on October 15, 2025.
Photos from the October 2025 opening celebration at Mni Sota Arts in downtown Redwood Falls, MN
Experience the vibrant community of Native culture, food, art, and community being cultivated by Mni Sota Arts.
The Future
Now that Mni Sota Arts is settled in its new, permanent home, their focus is shifting from the building to its programming. The team is hoping to start events in spring 2026, when Anne will also complete the Pathways Native Space Initiative, a cohort-based, capacity-building program from Artspace designed to support Native arts and cultural organizations in accessing, expanding, and developing arts and cultural space in their communities.
To learn more about Mni Sota Arts, visit https://www.mnisotaarts.org/