Sean Connaughty is a 2024 Upstream Unsung Caretaker

Being on the ground, observing conditions and developing a complex and reciprocal relationship with a place and its inhabitants is central to Sean Connaughty’s practice. For the past decade his labor and art practice has been focused on Bde Psin Lake Hiawatha in a stewardship relationship. Lake Hiawatha is one of the famous Chain of Lakes in Minneapolis and is simultaneously Minneapolis’ most biodiverse and polluted lake. The lake is just a few blocks from the home Sean lives in with his partner Melissa in the Standish neighborhood. What began as a solo trash cleanup effort at the Lake in 2014, has developed over time into a complex relationship with the place and the local community and eventually developed into a stewardship agreement with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

Sean leads a comprehensive restoration effort in and around the impaired lake with the group he co-founded Friends of Lake Hiawatha Bde Psin (FOLH). Since 2014 the artist and FOLH have removed over 12,000 lbs of plastic trash from the Lake, planted thousands of native plants and led community events, engaged in extensive advocacy and became involved in working for accountability and change with the numerous agencies and environmental regulations governing the Lake. This work has resulted in significant changes in the way our agencies consider and care for this lake and how they manage the pollutants that impair her.

Imagining our Future

As we work to restore wildlife connectivity our work at the Lake is moving us towards future of recovery it is helpful to imagine what the future could look like. A thing cannot be created until it is first imagined. What would need to be done to restore the migration route for bison from South Dakota to Bde Psin? We imagine that bison will again move along the Minnesota River Valley following the course of the ancient glacial River Warren from the source land where the original herd still resides – where Lake Agassiz once drained.

Bde Psin’s wildlife residents are surviving in a corridor along Minnehaha Creek (Wakpa Cistinna) and the Mississippi River despite the historic destruction of the ancestral Dakota wild rice beds after colonization and ongoing egregious pollution and habitat destruction. These paintings cause us to see them, and to become in part responsible for their continued survival as the community and agencies decide the future of this public space. Will the changes we make end the egregious pollution and allow for the continued survival of our wildlife residents?

Learn more about Sean’s work: https://www.friendsoflakehiawatha.org/  https://www.seanconnaughty.com/

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