Chandra Colvin
MPR News
Originally published on MPR News.
Heather Friedli leads Team Kwe — the all-female Indigenous snow carving team. Kwe means “woman” in the Ojibwe language.
She said the three-person team is the only one of its kind in North America.
“One of the significances, too, of being a Kwe woman, is that women are the keepers of the water. And so, by sculpting with snow, we are protecting snow water as part of what we are doing, and we approach it as a spiritual practice,” Friedli said. The team did their first snow sculpture five years ago.
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board named the public art installation, “Carved in Snow: Stories of Land and Legacy.” The project highlights Indigenous history, seasonal storytelling and youth mentorship.
The art installation includes four snow sculptures across riverfront parks near downtown Minneapolis. Each sculpture will represent one of the four seasons.
During the second week of January, Team Kwe worked on the project’s first sculpture at Mill Ruins Park. The sculpture depicts a merganser, a waterfowl, with flames emerging from its torso.
Friedli said the sculpture’s imagery is adapted from stories in the Ojibwe culture about the transition from winter to spring.
“The birds were singing their sacred song of springtime to fight back biboon, which is winter,” she said.
Teammate and Friedli’s sister, Juliana Welter, said she hopes people can find new perspectives in the installation.
“People have their own version of how the spring comes, but to maybe see the story we’re putting on here with the merganser — the fire in his belly, singing the song of spring — like, maybe they’ll go, ‘Oh, that’s a new way for me to see it,’” Welter said.
Meryt Watkins-Wright is a stand-in member on the team this year. It’s her first time snow carving, an activity she said made her both nervous and excited.
“It’s definitely a learning experience,” Watkins-Wright said.
She added that, as someone who is mixed Afro-Indigenous, participating on Team Kwe and designing the sculptures has allowed her to connect with her Indigenous heritage through storytelling.
“This is Indigenous land, and I think that it has been overlooked, taken away. It’s really important to — in the middle of the park in downtown — have it be like the centerpiece. I think it’s very meaningful,” she said.
Team Kwe began working on the project just days before the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Macklin Good. They took a brief pause in their work to be with community, but continued crafting sculpture the next day.
“We knew that it’s important as artists to continue the work, because what we’re doing is important to bring joy and vitality to the downtown area, and we want to make sure that people can find solace in what we do,” Friedli said.
This week, Team Kwe has been working at Father Hennepin Bluff Park on the second sculpture of the public installation. The sculpture will feature imagery of a fox with its kit surrounded by floral designs, representing spring.
She shared that the events over the last week “have weighed heavy on our souls.”
“Many, many people have come up to us just saying, ‘Thank you so much for being out here and creating this work when everything is so chaotic and feels so upsetting right now in the Twin Cities,’ and people really are feeling that this artwork is important to bring them joy right now, and so we’re happy to do that,” Friedli said.
Friedli encourages community members to stop by the parks to see Team Kwe’s progress on each sculpture.
The team plans to finish the second sculpture at Father Hennepin Bluff Park on Friday.
Other parks included in the art installation include Nicollet Island Park and Graco Park. The project concludes the first week of February.
Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.