At popular Art Shanty Projects, artists and visitors reflect on ICE surge in Minneapolis

Despite frigid temperatures, Minnesotans bundled up and wandered on frozen Lake Harriet during the annual Art Shanty Projects on Sunday, Jan. 18. Some 20 whimsical artist-built shanties welcomed visitors, but people had more on their mind than just the ice below their feet.

“I feel a lot of different ways at once,” said snem DeSellier, co-creator of the Weather or Not Station shanty. “There are some parts of it that are tricky, to be here and not be out there. And also it has been a really grounding thing to have [the Art Shanty project].”

As more federal immigration enforcement agents descend on Minneapolis, with more than 2,000 agents already in town, artists and visitors alike sifted through mixed feelings while roving through the artist-built shanties. At the four-week celebration of winter, people also reflected on the current state of events.

In the middle of the village, three large mural pop-ups of monarch butterflies carry the accompanying text: “Protect Immigrants. Abolish ICE!” “Migration is natural.”

Erin Hermansen, 34, and Kenyon Shafer, 38, snapped photos of the butterflies.

“I love the ‘abolish ICE’ mural,” Hermansen said. “I love the colors and the representation of that.”

The decision to visit the shanties wasn’t the same as last year’s.

At the playful interactive nonenclosed yellow submarine art shanty Sub Bdé Umáŋ, visitors explored the lake’s history.

Emma Soglin, 31, stopped by Art Shanty Projects with her friends. She was visiting Minneapolis from Chicago, where she works as an immigration lawyer.

“I thought that was such an important form of resistance,” Soglin said. “To continue to gather and be creative and spend time with one another, especially outside.”

Inside the submarine, she really appreciated the shame extinguisher and a little display where visitors can put rows of yellow ducks in a row.

“My ducks are never in a row,” she joked.

“The organizing movement in Chicago did the same thing, to continue to celebrate Mexican Independence Day and do parades and all these sorts of acts of gathering and resistance,” she said. “And knowing that enforcement could happen there and doing it anyway, and flooding public spaces with people as a way to protect folks.”

At the Cat World shanty, visitors cautiously approached a giant cat head with a door between its huge green eyes.

Artist Eva Adderley, 35, had been outside on the ice since 9 a.m. The end of the day was approaching, but she didn’t feel that cold.

Inside the shanty, visitors could become cats. People could put on cat masks and play with hanging string, knock items off a shelf or just be annoying, like a cat.

Adderly’s three mischievous cats inspired her to make this shanty.