Speaking of Home

Portland Color, Portland, Maine, United States

Speaking of Home was a 150-foot environmental design and public art project charged with re-imaging the use and experience of the Twin Cities skyway system, the most expansive in North America. Designer-initiated and implemented with city and private stakeholders, it was the first skyway public art project in the history of the Twin Cities. The project was installed in the IDS Center/Macy’s skyway bridge in Minneapolis, above Nicollet Mall, between 7th and 8th Streets.

There were several key design challenges: to respect the architecture of Philip Johnson’s IDS Center; to ensure the return of the space to normal conditions following removal; to avoid impeding the flow people through the busiest skyway in the city; and to create an identity system strong enough to compete with retail, yet subtle enough to let the art speak for itself.

As a social justice project, Speaking of Home—consciously positioned at the city’s nerve center of finance, commerce and power”gave voice and presence to Minnesota’s expanding immigrant population while sensitizing the general population to their own immigrant roots and difficulties new immigrants face. Designed to symbolically invert the relationship between the city’s native-born citizens and its recent arrivals, the project situated the immigrants as stationary onlookers, while locals passed by and moved through the city. Approximately 90,000 people were impacted by the project per day: 16,000 inside the skyway and 75,000 pedestrians on Nicollet Mall.

The project required intense cooperation between the artist (Nancy Ann Coyne) and Portland Color. The artist was on-site for more than a week during production, overseeing the fabric choice, print quality and finishing solution.

Speaking of Home has been lauded by public art experts, and funding is being organized to repeat the project in St. Paul, Minn.