It’s been a little over a year since Katayoun Amjadi joined Public Art Saint Paul’s team as City Artist. We sat down with her to catch readers up to what she’s been working on in her role as the City Artist:

 

Tell me a little bit about where you’re from and what brought you to the Twin Cities?

Life brought me to the Twin Cities. I feel like some things in life are not your choices, but chances that happen. I used to be an architectural drafter when I was in Iran, but I was always more interested in the art aspect than in the engineering aspect. After I immigrated to U.S, it became evident that I needed to start over. So, I went to the University of Minnesota to get academically trained as an artist, and in 2015, started my studio in Northeast Minneapolis. I’ve been active as a visual artist ever since, creating installations, multimedia works, and teaching.

 

What drew you to the City Artist position?

The hunger for learning that drove me to pursue academic training to become a professional artist still exists within me. The work I do as the City Artist feels like a continuation of that because every day, I’m learning something new related to the arts. I was also drawn to the City Artist position because it’s a means of promotion. I feel like art becomes art when it’s shared, and I was very familiar with publicizing my work through galleries and museums, but curious how to broaden the audience and expand my range as an artist in the Twin Cities.

 

As the City Artist, what is a typical day like for you?

I work remotely, and once a week, I visit in my cubicle at the Department of Public Works in City Hall. I work to assist with the integration of public art into Saint Paul and it’s a lot of correspondence, emails to understand the reconstruction projects and budgets. My role is kind of like a surrogate artist. I perform initial research on the history of the neighborhood and anything that I can find that is relevant and helps with ideation. It’s very exciting. I love learning about the history of this town. For example, I was looking through old pictures of Grand Ave, and it was mind blowing to see the contrast between Grand Ave now and how it looked a hundred years ago. It’s fascinating to see what residues of history still exist and what has been buried or redeveloped completely.

I also work on the initial stage of community engagement to help shape the vision for the public art that is to be integrated. For example, for the reconstruction project on Pelham Boulevard, a project I’m currently working on, I used eye-opening information I got from meetings, questionnaires, and surveys sent out to the community to develop a request for proposal (RFP), to recruit an artist that would be best suited for the project. The RFP was recently released, and it’s exciting to look at the submissions. This was my first time going through the whole process, and I learned a lot from this RFP release, so that I’m confident of continual improvements to the process in the future.

 

What do you think your impact on Saint Paul has been so far as the City Artist?

Good question. It’s been a year since I’ve been working with the City and Public Arts Saint Paul. I feel that I’ve at least got the wheels turning. I’m excited because several public art integration projects are well in motion. I’m energized to see what can come to life!