The ultimate goal: harnessing art to facilitate community healing after Floyd’s death. “I knew I just needed a platform and a stage I needed to create a container, and once I had it, social interaction would fill that container with the type of community engagement we wanted to see,” Ero-Phillips says of his project.
Haircuts for Change was one of 10 projects supported by the city’s Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy. In the wake of Floyd’s death in May, the team repurposed grant resources to mobilize the skills of local artists and designers “to engage with and expand the impact of healing and community support.” The resulting projects, all led by artists of color, took place between August and into this month. This year, the work will continue and expand with repurposed police dollars. In 2020 the Minneapolis City Council voted to shift almost $8 million in police funding to expand other services; the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Eco