Next time you’re at the co-op, you may notice we have rearranged some of the murals. The original purpose of the plywood-turned-murals was twofold — protect our cooperatively owned buildings during the civil unrest and serve as a canvas for local artists and community members to begin to process grief and trauma. Our hope for the relocation is to allow natural light in through the store windows, while we continue to stand in solidarity with community.

Franklin Store

We intend to move two of the murals from the Franklin store windows to the south side of the parking lot. The remaining murals currently affixed to the store won’t be moved.

Friendship Store

At the Friendship store we plan to move four murals to the east side of the parking lot. Two murals will remain on the windows at the stairwell and the 38^th Street entryway.

After discussion with the artists about their wishes to keep their art in the community, we plan to display the murals at both of our stores. Later this fall we will move the murals from the parking lots and on our buildings to storage over the winter. At such time the co-op no longer has a need for them, we will likely donate them to ‘Save the Boards MPLS’ in order to keep the artwork in South Minneapolis where the artwork and messages have been so impactful. The goal of Save the Boards MPLS is to accumulate as much of the street art (wood boards on businesses) as possible and curate them in established locations around the community.