MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL—One presumptive presidential candidate. Nearly 4,500 Republican delegates. At least 15,000 media members. An estimated 80,000 protesters. And millions of eyes from all around the world. As the host for the Republican National Convention, taking place September 1–4 at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild hockey team, the predominantly Democratic-leaning Twin Cities are gearing up, for one week at least, to become America’s media capital.

And while the politicians and pundits are sure to be the week’s frontline stars, the Minneapolis and St. Paul arts community has come together to create a spectacle of its own: a citizen-led multi-venue arts initiative called the UnConvention. The event, which begins August 30 and runs through September 4 and beyond, includes installations, forums, parades, performance art projects, and other happenings that, according to program director Marlina Gonzalez, are meant to highlight concepts of democracy, civic engagement, and dissent and encourage a political process that is unscripted, collaborative, and all-inclusive.

“We wanted to make sure community voices were not lost in the cacophony of political speeches,” says Gonzalez, who is also the programs manager at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, a multidisciplinary gallery that will serve as UnConvention central. “The idea was to make this a nonpartisan event where everyone had a voice. We saw it as an opportunity to spotlight issues that are important to the community and to voters, not just what’s being talked about in political arenas.”

As such, the Unconvention’s nearly 40 events and offerings are less a protest against the visiting political partisans than an examination of issues central to the coming election. Through a partnership with Forecast Public Art, for example, photographer Nancy Anne Coyne has created “Speaking of Home,” a series of large-scale, translucent images of area immigrants that will hang in Minneapolis’s downtown skyway system through October 31 and explore the changing faces of the Twin Cities. “Segrelicious,” a multimedia arts installation at the Obsidian Arts Gallery in South Minneapolis, takes on the foreclosure crisis with images of vacant and boarded homes throughout the Twin Cities and across the world. And “Hindsight Is Always 20/20,” a project by New York–based artist and musician R. Luke DuBois at the Weisman Art Museum, interprets State of the Union addresses by each of the 43 American presidents in Snellen eye charts created out of each one's most-uttered terms (“terror,” “Iraq,” and “Iraqi,” top [the current] President Bush’s list).

The UnConvention was conceived by Steve Dietz, a former curator of new media at Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center and now director of the Twin Cities’ tech-focused public arts organization Northern Lights. It began as a humble idea last summer, when Dietz imagined the convention as the perfect breeding ground for participatory, digital-media arts and expression. But as hundreds of artists signed on to be a part of Dietz’s vision, it evolved from strictly a new-media public arts project into a multi-media, collaborative arts and ideas festival. It even offers a gathering place at Intermedia Arts where independent and alt-media journalists can network and pollinate more citizen participation and dialogue.  

Gonzalez credits UnConvention’s rapid growth to Dietz’s creativity and ability to organize. In less than a year, he’s brought on several local galleries as well as partner institutions the Walker Art Center, Intermedia Arts, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and the University of Minnesota’s Institute for New Media Studies. These local institutions were responsible for approving UnConvention projects, leading discussion forums, and for the event’s promotion, which has, in some cases, been spotty; with so many new artists and organizations signing on to be a part of UnConvention every day, the collaborative spirit that is the project’s virtue has also been a hindrance when it comes to having a central, organized message.