Banner image: We the People, 2026. Handwoven cotton and wool tapestry. Courtesy of the artist.&nbsp;

A Note From the Editor:

Sometimes I wonder about the relevance or role of art in a world that is slowly but surely cutting funding and closing galleries left, right, and center. When tragedy strikes, I find that artists and the art we create in community are one of the few things holding us together. Many artists have done the heavy lifting of sharing their work as a means of protest and resistance. In line with our mission in fostering a sustainable arts community, here are some ways you can help support those affected by ICE through the voice of our Minneapolis artists:

Pick up posters from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/4440686558/crush-ice-risograph-printed-poster?sr_prefetch=1&amp;pf_from=shop_home&amp;ref=shop_home_active_7&amp;crt=1&amp;logging_key=3bb005151a919eca408382ec921551a936bbcb14%3A4440686558">Back of Beyond Press</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://benchpressed.com/products/we-love-our-immigrant-neighbors?pr_prod_strat=jac&amp;pr_rec_id=e2886c719&amp;pr_rec_pid=9186614313180&amp;pr_ref_pid=9210816233692&amp;pr_seq=uniform">Bench Pressed</a>&nbsp;and raise money for mutual aid with&nbsp;<a href="https://benchpressed.com/products/fuck-ice-tshirts?variant=47443808125148">Bench Pressed&nbsp;T-shirts</a>&nbsp;and hclou&nbsp;tattoos&nbsp;<a href="https://calendly.com/hclou/tattoo-appointment-canmn?month=2026-01">Canmn&nbsp;Flash Tattoo</a>. Get even more&nbsp;T-shirts and tote bags (also raising money for mutual aid) from <a href="https://burlesquedesign.com/products/abolish-ice-shirt-numero-dos?_pos=2&amp;_sid=514d73802&amp;_ss=r">BRLSQ</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://alondra-m-garza.myshopify.com/collections/f-ck-ice-products?utm_source=ig&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=link_in_bio&amp;fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMjU2MjgxMDQwNTU4AAGnStyz8cdI8ssB1_WwNEE39iuxWWVk05P0-ObEPS0ZIaBJfe1C2w5KSHxXpag_aem_Endycf9F_YGlppH6HYzjVw">Alondra&nbsp;M Garza</a>.

This week, we look to Fawzia Khan&#39;s solo show,&nbsp;Fragile State, as a reminder that even in trying times, visual art has a knack for healing.&nbsp;-Laura

◼︎&nbsp;◼︎&nbsp;◼︎&nbsp;◼︎&nbsp;◼︎&nbsp;

To walk through <a href="https://www.fawziakhanart.com/">Fawzia Khan&rsquo;s</a> solo exhibit &ldquo;<a href="https://www.fawziakhanart.com/events/2026/1/8/fragile-state">Fragile State</a>&rdquo; is to experience a kind of existential vertigo. On the walls of the Form + Content Gallery in North Loop Minneapolis, textiles weave together the frayed fabric of American democracy. What may look like a solid block of color from one angle emerges as an intricate pattern from another.&nbsp;

This optical illusion in her piece &ldquo;Variations on a Theme&rdquo; reflects a country that can no longer agree on what it is seeing &mdash; where the &ldquo;truth&rdquo; often depends on where you stand.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/a0b5b3fb-d0d9-4d92-b1da-70ce250bc5d0/a0b5b3fb-d0d9-4d92-b1da-70ce250bc5d0.full.jpg" />Variations on a Theme, 2026. L to R: Black, Red and Blue. Courtesy of Myah Goff

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The exhibit arrives at a moment of profound grief in the Twin Cities. Since December, federal immigration enforcement has swept through the Twin Cities under &ldquo;Operation Metro Surge.&rdquo; The community reached a breaking point on Jan. 7, when an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old poet and mother Renee Good in south Minneapolis.&nbsp;

Videos of the shooting have circulated widely, but depending on who you ask, the footage can tell a completely different story. &ldquo;Some people are convinced she was not going to run him over and he just shot her,&rdquo; Khan said. &ldquo;And other people are equally convinced that he was justified in shooting her because she was going to run him over.&rdquo;

It&rsquo;s difficult to walk into a gallery today without carrying the weight of morning headlines. But Khan doesn&rsquo;t ask you to leave your grievances at the door. She meets you there, drawing on her medical and artistic background to dissect the anatomy of disagreement. &ldquo;I wanted to talk about the polarization in our society,&rdquo; Khan said. &ldquo;We all kind of want the same thing for the most part, but we have such different ways of going about it.&rdquo;

Her critique grows more pointed in a cross-stitch sampler framed with red and blue patriotic threads. Here, Khan embroiders a cynical twist of the &ldquo;Three Wise Monkeys&rdquo; proverb: &ldquo;See No Contradictions, Hear No Facts, Speak Your Truth.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/000e80c0-cc01-4599-8914-4dbbec9a3358/000e80c0-cc01-4599-8914-4dbbec9a3358.full.jpg" />Sampler, 2026. Hand embroidered cross-stitch on cotton. Courtesy of the artist.&nbsp;

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While the top of the piece is meticulous and orderly, the bottom edge breaks open &mdash; a visual representation of how rigid social and political structures can unravel under pressure. At the center, two groups are frozen in a permanent argument, unable to hear anything but their own convictions.

&ldquo;When you look at both sides kind of screaming at each other, they start seeing the other person as the enemy instead of talking about why they believe something or feel a certain way,&rdquo; Khan said. &ldquo;You ignore the facts you don&rsquo;t believe in and you accept the facts that align with your world view.&rdquo;

Khan suggests that this dissonance is fueled by an algorithmic echo chamber, where the interests of tech leaders and politicians are maintained by keeping the public in a state of perpetual, profitable conflict. In &ldquo;Lesson Learned,&rdquo; she invites visitors to repeatedly write the phrase: &ldquo;There are no principles, only interests&rdquo; on a blackboard.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/dab55970-3af5-42a9-92c6-33ace5f3876a/dab55970-3af5-42a9-92c6-33ace5f3876a.full.jpg" />Lesson Learned, 2026, Masonite, chalkboard paint, paint, chalk, wood, eraser. Courtesy of Myah Goff.&nbsp;

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&ldquo;My husband has been quoting this to me for 35 years,&rdquo; Khan said. &ldquo;Everytime I get frustrated with a politician &mdash; &lsquo;Why are they doing that when they say they&rsquo;re about this?&rsquo; &mdash; he says &lsquo;because there are no principles, only interests.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Amid the grief surrounding Good&rsquo;s death and ongoing ICE operations, Khan resists total pessimism. In &ldquo;The Broken Truth,&rdquo; inspired by Douglas Wood&rsquo;s children&rsquo;s book &ldquo;Old Turtle and the Broken Truth,&rdquo; she humanizes the &ldquo;other&rdquo; &mdash; whoever that may be for the viewer. The piece features a recording of the line: &ldquo;You are loved and so are they.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/8bd07a31-0871-46cd-86c9-8fa2023f4dd9/8bd07a31-0871-46cd-86c9-8fa2023f4dd9.full.jpg" />The Broken Truth, 2024. Handwoven wool and cotton, audio recording. Courtesy&nbsp;of Myah Goff.&nbsp;

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&ldquo;I think that we need voices of calm and reason to talk about things and find common ground,&rdquo; Khan said, asking viewers to recognize our shared humanity as a starting point.

Khan&rsquo;s perspective is shaped by a life lived between two worlds. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, she moved to the U.S. at age 12 and spent her earlier years practicing medicine before pivoting to art at age 35. Her internal tug-of-war emerges across the exhibit. Works from 2024 carry the hope of building bridges through understanding, as seen in her loom-woven prayer rug &ldquo;Open Mindedness.&rdquo; Beside the rug, an audio recording features 13th-century poet Rumi&rsquo;s words: &ldquo;Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I&rsquo;ll meet you there.&rdquo;

Her 2026 works bear the fatigue of someone who is watching the American democracy fracture, revealing cracks that were always there. &ldquo;Fragile State&rdquo; feels less like revelation and more like remembering something we once knew, lost track of, and are being asked to sit with again.&nbsp;

Stepping out of the gallery and back onto the streets of Minneapolis, protests continue, ICE operations press on and division persists. But Khan&rsquo;s work resists the urge to simplify what was never simple to begin with and reminds us that compassion is more urgent than ever.◼︎&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Fragile State is on view at <a href="https://www.formandcontent.org/">Form+Content Gallery</a> up through February 14th. Follow Fawzia Khan&nbsp;on Instagram&nbsp;at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/fawziakhanart/?hl=en">@fawziakhanart&nbsp;</a>and see more work on her website <a href="https://www.fawziakhanart.com/">fawziakhanart.com</a>.

Visual artist Fawzia Khan puts American democracy in the hot seat

Fragile State

Ten standout exhibitions that defined a year of experimentation, memory, and material-driven storytelling in the Twin Cities.

Looking Back, Looking Closely: Ten Twin Cities Exhibitions That Shaped 2025

First, some numbers. There are over 70 quilts in the exhibit Threads of Becoming at the Cora McCorvey Health and Wellness Center. The artist, Carol Hancuh, didn&rsquo;t start quilting until she was retired and in her 60s. The earliest quilts on display are from 2012-2013, but the majority of the show is from the past five years, including major series Voting Line from 2020, and Inspired by Poetry from 2022-2023. And if you make the looping walk around the corridor of the McCorvey Center twice, to pay attention to both sides of the installation, you&rsquo;ll get about 500 steps in.

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/3c52180b-9090-4d9a-8bae-3896a32a1901/3c52180b-9090-4d9a-8bae-3896a32a1901.full.jpg" /> 
Feed My People,&nbsp;Carol Hancuh, 2014. Image courtesy&nbsp;the artist&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Next, some stories. In a preview of the exhibition, Hancuh walked the show, accompanied by her husband Lowell and curator Joan Vorderbruggen, highlighting her history, inspirations, and artistic explorations. Vorderbuggen also shared about setting for the exhibition. The Cora McCorvey Health and Wellness Center is in and of itself a unique space, owned by Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and including clinics, physical therapy (hence the step count), hospice care, and the only memory care unit in public housing in the county.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/cefbb7b8-0765-4089-9f4b-355f63669cc1/cefbb7b8-0765-4089-9f4b-355f63669cc1.full.jpg" /> 
Install day.&nbsp;Photo by Sharolyn Hagen&nbsp;

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That setting makes for a creative partnership that is resonant for Vorderbruggen. Along with her public art and curatorial background, she is by profession a nurse, and a caregiver. When asked what that context means to her in this role, she responds, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s everything. My grandpa lived in the public housing across for the central library, I grew up going to public housing.&rdquo; She goes on to note that that the Center is a place to celebrate seniors, and &ldquo;this is where I want to bring beauty, creativity, artwork, and it hasn&rsquo;t been happening since pandemic.&rdquo; That drive aligns with Vorderbruggen&rsquo;s history of entrepreneurial collaborations with unlikely spaces and organizations. Her work with Artists in Storefronts and partnerships with organizations like the <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2023/02/the-city-of-murals">Hennepin Theater District</a> and the <a href="https://www.visitlakestreet.com/newsroom/mural-bonanza-in-minneapolis-34-new-murals-will-transform-east-lake-street-corridor-in-june">Lake Street Council</a> have created hundreds of opportunities for <a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2022/03/the-message-is-the-medium-the-radical-reality-art-of-andrew-moore">established and emerging artists</a> alike over the years.

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/8ce5f854-baaf-4209-9f3b-17bb13825fb3/8ce5f854-baaf-4209-9f3b-17bb13825fb3.full.jpg" />Artist Carol Hancuh. Photo by Sharolyn Hagen

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Part of the draw of Threads of Becoming is the emergence of Hancuh&rsquo;s artistry later in life.&nbsp; Hancuh had a professional life as a Mask Layout Designer for the semiconductor industry, a key role in mapping out electronic circuits onto microchips, before retiring and finding quilting. It&rsquo;s a skill that Vorderbruggen wryly notes set Hancuh up well for the layering and problem-solving of quilts. Hancuh is more demure about her drive to create, saying that it was a way to explore her creativity &ldquo;once she had the time,&rdquo; but it is clear that making quilts has become a core part of Hancuh&rsquo;s life now. She drives a car with a custom license plate holder reading, &ldquo;Behind every quilter is a huge pile of fabric,&rdquo; and her husband Lowell jokes, &ldquo;If we go past a sign with a quilt shop, we gotta stop.&rdquo;

&ldquo;I&rsquo;m more of a storyteller, I don&rsquo;t do abstracts very often,&rdquo; Hancuh says of her artistic intentions, and that is borne out in the exhibition. The earliest works are quilts as you would expect them, patchwork squares put together, playing with color and pattern. &ldquo;This is one of the first ones I&rsquo;d done,&rdquo; Hancuh remarked at 2012&rsquo;s My Crazy Scrap Quilt, laughing to herself. &ldquo;And I thought I&rsquo;d done so well, and then it isn&rsquo;t so square.&rdquo; The early quilts are formal experiments &ndash; Yellow and Black plays with a color limitation of batik fabric swatches and a rule of no repeated patterns, there is an appliqu&eacute; take on the classic bronze sculpture Seated Boxer after taking a class in Florence, Italy, and Spilled Vase starts to capture some formal dynamism with an upended vase and flowers tumbling out, including embellishments of ribbons and hand-sewn crystals that will make recurring appearances.

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/3f913cf4-bbd9-4cbb-96f0-087460c26e3f/3f913cf4-bbd9-4cbb-96f0-087460c26e3f.full.jpg" />In the Lake, Carol Hancuh, 2018. Image courtesy the artist

&nbsp;

The storytelling instinct starts to emerge in earnest with the 2017 series Bus Stop, which break the rectangular form of the quilt and instead create full body portraits of people waiting for a bus. Most of the characters are fictions (and one is barista at a South Minneapolis coffee shop) but they come out of Hancuh&rsquo;s curiosity and desire to play with form. &ldquo;When you finish with the face you know who they are, how to dress them,&rdquo; Hancuh states. The assembled crew all have backstories &ndash; Star, a distressed goth all in black with eyeliner and tattoos; Yana, a Russian &eacute;migr&eacute; grandmother who will invite you in for tea;&nbsp;Friedrich, a pompous professor in tweed; Edna, a frumpy purple hat lady; Jesu, an itinerant worker. The stories of the individuals is part of Hancuh&rsquo;s creative process, but the point is that everyone is there, together.

There is a thread of Hancuh&rsquo;s Christian faith underpinning many of the quilts, and as the works progress, there is also a more explicit call for social justice and community support. 2018&rsquo;s Feed My People features a group of diverse faces around a portrait of a Black veteran wrapped in an American flag, separated by a wall from a garden full of fresh foods. 2021&rsquo;s Missing centers on a full portrait of a screaming child on a black background, body only outlined in thread to indicate disappearance, as a hand pulls the child away &ndash; Hancuh created the piece in direct response to the policies of migrant family separation. 2023&rsquo;s Today I Will Only Attend to the Small Things, from the series Inspired by Poetry, features a gardening motif with abstracted, chaotic color schemes referencing racial strife, American political division, and the war in Ukraine, and an attempt to come to ordered understanding through mindful work.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/9f2d51d4-6c50-4cfd-a493-9effdb0e7255/9f2d51d4-6c50-4cfd-a493-9effdb0e7255.full.jpg" /> 
Detail view of Yana from the Bus Stop People series, 2018.&nbsp;&nbsp;Photo by Sharolyn Hagen

&nbsp;

That sense of community and justice is the organizing theme for the largest body of work in the show, 2020&rsquo;s Voting Line. Created in the buildup to the fraught election of that year, Voting Line expands the forms and portraiture of Bus Stop, imagining a line of voters waiting for their turn at the polls. There are recognizable figures &ndash; Susan B. Anthony, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, signer of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 &ndash; but for the most part, they are fictions or semi-fictions created by Hancuh. A medical professional, a chemo patient, a senior citizen using a walker all vote out of concern for healthcare costs. A retired teacher hopes his mentorship has made a difference. A naturalized citizen worries about immigration and families. The line of voters snake all the way around the hallways of the exhibition, satisfyingly ending with actual voting booths, and then Jack, smiling with his I VOTED sticker, and a note that he will spend the rest of the day driving souls to the polls.

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/f933583f-943e-446e-80d5-287f72c0c7ed/f933583f-943e-446e-80d5-287f72c0c7ed.full.jpg" /> 
Detail View. Photo by Sharolyn Hagen

&nbsp;

Quilting is an act of patience and problem-solving, and although Hancuh is firm that these are art works and not practical pieces, the form comes from a utilitarian impulse. The same could be said for our democracy, that it takes perseverance and patience, and we could use more intentional stitching together these days. Creative exploration and exchange is key to that, as Hancuh highlighted in 2022&rsquo;s Illume, a series of broken yellow concentric circles on a black background. It is one of the more abstract pieces, counterbalancing the narrative works, but Hancuh says, &ldquo;I named it Illume because I want people to feel like their light shines.&rdquo; There&rsquo;s not really a better place to contemplate that light and connection than in a publicly-accessible health and housing center.

&nbsp;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/mplsart-cdn-central/FileContainers/e5c46c51-823a-4379-a48e-953c9283e9fb/e5c46c51-823a-4379-a48e-953c9283e9fb.full.jpg" /> 
Installation view of Threads of Becoming. Photo by&nbsp;Sharolyn Hagen&nbsp;

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In two years of partnering with McCorvey Center, this is the first solo show that Vorderbruggen has curated in the space. Usually the shows are big group affairs, and she would throw a big opening party for all the artists, but with the solo show opening in the holiday season, Vorderbruggen has instead arranged a Holiday Arts &amp; Crafts Fair for Saturday, December 6th. In appropriate fashion, the show will include established artists (<a href="https://amy-rice-qvit.squarespace.com/">Amy Rice</a>, <a href="https://www.rozinadee.com/">Rozina Dee</a>) as well as new vendors and artists who Vorderbruggen is mentoring. That Saturday promises to be packed day of celebrating community and creativity, fitting for the Center and its mission. Threads of Becoming will be on view through May 31, 2026, plenty of time to reflect on the growth and the stories, and get some steps in.◼︎&nbsp;

 
<a href="http://www.mplsart.com/events/threads-of-becoming-or-carol-hancuh" target="_blank">Threads of Becoming | Carol Hancuh</a> is on view through May 31st, 2026 at&nbsp;Cora McCorvey Health and Wellness Center located at&nbsp;1015 N 4th Ave, Minneapolis. A reception will be held this Saturday December 6th from 1-4PM alongside the&nbsp;popup artist market&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/events/holiday-gift-fair" target="_blank">Holiday Gift Fair</a>. You can see more of&nbsp;Carol Hancuh&#39;s work on <a href="https://chancuhquilts.com/" target="_blank">her website</a>.

Cover image photo&nbsp;by Sharolyn Hagen Photography

In an expansive exhibition, quilter Carol Hancuh shares her own story of exploration, community, and connection with her late in life quilting boom.



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