Project Clients:  

• Center for Urban & Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota (CURA) – University of Minnesota: Aligns U of M resources for community driven change, collaborating with community and local government.
• The Loppet Foundation: a North Minneapolis based nonprofit self-described as “connecting people to the outdoors through experiences that grow community.” 

Project Partners:

• Lee Guekguezian – Program Coordinator, Community-Based Research Programs, CURA
• Neamatallah Elsayed – PhD Student, OLPD Department, University of Minnesota
• NatureWerks’ – Anna Peterson & Ryan Atwell, Project Consultants, The Loppet Foundation
• Kimberly Jones – Project Consultant, Art Curator and Community Liaison, Stories of Connection Project, The Loppet Foundation
• Amber Hoover – Community Engagement Manager, The Loppet Foundation  

Project Timeline: June of 2024 -January of 2025

Onibaba Studio were brought into the Stories of Connection project by CURA, who Cori has worked with on several other community-based illustration projects. This project was a collaborative effort to illuminate relationships between Northern Minneapolis residents, Theodore Wirth Park, and green space more broadly. The illustrations were intended to be used in multiple print, digital, and installation formats. 

We met with Lee to discuss the broad project scope in late June of 2024. After our meeting, Lee connected us with Neamatallah (Neama) Elsayed, the PhD student who conducted the research and interviews for the project and Ryan Attwell, a project consultant with the Loppet Foundation. 

Using Neama’s qualitative research and input by the community advisory board, Cori drafted storymaps that encompassed major themes of place-based memories, historical displacement, relationships with green space, and intentions for community.

While we initially planned on making one large image and 12 individual scenes, the community advisory committee, Ryan, and Loppet staffer Kimberly Jones eventually identified three major themes that clustered around major corridors, and so we shifted to making corridor maps of Glenwood ave, Plymouth ave, and Olson Memorial Highway maps.

At each draft stage, the illustrations were taken to community advisory meetings for feedback, and ideas for illustration specifics were largely generated by the team and Kimberly, a long-term Northside Minneapolis resident.