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 Minnesotas 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.

The Walker, the hub of the city’s contemporary arts scene, is one of the main museums participating in and promoting the UnConvention. The museum has been in flux recently with the loss of director Kathy Halbreich to MoMA in New York and the upcoming departure of chief curator Philippe Vergne for New York’s Dia Foundation on September 15. Yet in addition to its organizational role, the Walker, which has focused many of its efforts of late on art as a participatory experience, has been involved in training aspiring videographers for “I Approve This Message.” Organized by documentarian Chuck Olsen and his citizen journalism organization, the UpTake, the project allows everyday citizens to create DIY videos in which they share their concerns with the delegates. The videos will be aired on JumboTrons in downtown Minneapolis’s Peavey Plaza, on the UnConvention’s YouTube channel, and later in an installation at the Walker Art Center and will be promoted by the British newspaper the Guardian.

“We want to use the power of online video to give people a voice in the RNC,” Olsen says. “These videos can literally put anyone at this exclusive event.” (The UpTake tried to get into the RNC as journalists or via Google, an RNC sponsor, but was denied access.) Indeed, many of the projects in the UnConvention use the power of citizen-controlled new media, from blogs to YouTube, to explore and challenge concepts of democracy itself.

The ideas of citizen organization and engagement are what Gonzalez says the UnConvention is all about. Both literally and metaphorically, she says, all of the art projects will be powered by the people and fueled by the imagination. One perfect illustration of the UnConvention’s vision is the F-30 Pedal Cloud bike, an 11-person vehicle/sculpture that will be traveling all over the Twin Cities during the convention.

“It requires people to move together,” says Gonzalez. “It requires hands and feet and voices, and it requires the cooperation of all of the people using it in order to move forward.”