Curator, Artivist and Practitioner of Joy Esther Callahan Is Building a Black Art Economy in Minnesota

In the latest episode of On the Radar, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder’s series highlighting Black Minnesota creatives, host Damenica Ellis sat down with Esther Callahan, an artist, curator, and what her Instagram rightly calls a practitioner of joy. Callahan’s work spans art direction, curation, consulting, activism, and community building, all in service of one overarching mission: ensuring Black artists are seen, supported, and paid.

Art as Activism

When Operation Metro Surge began and families across the Twin Cities were sheltering in place, Callahan did not wait. She reached out to Fancy and Emanuel at the Legacy Building and asked if she could collect art donations to build art kits for families in need.

“Art is healing,” she said. “How can we honor that moment? Give families a moment to breathe. Give kids a moment to find joy through creation, through imagination.”

Every Wednesday, Callahan hosts art donation drop-offs and art kit-making sessions, distributing handmade kits to schools across the state, health care facilities, shelters, and organizations gathering food supplies. She describes herself as an artivist, someone who leans into activism through the lens of art.

The Work of Curation

Beyond activism, Callahan works as an art director, independent curator, and art consultant. She centers local artists in for-profit spaces like hotels, coffee shops, and apartment buildings, and curates exhibitions at spaces like the Gordon Parks Gallery at Metro State University, supporting emerging, mid-career, and established Black and BIPOC artists.

Her curatorial philosophy is intentionally unconventional. She has orchestrated wheat-paste installations on the outside of buildings, poetry walks written in washable chalk on sidewalks, participatory exhibitions where visitors become part of the work, and installations designed to be viewed from the floor up or high above eye level.

“Why is it that we put everything at roughly 60 inches on the wall when we all are at varying sizes?” she said. “Think about installations that you have to look up at, that everybody has to look up at. Think about installations that are only on the floor that invite children to see something in a different way.”

She also described one of her most meaningful projects, co-curating an exhibition called Stand Up Prince at High Point Center for Printmaking in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, where she worked with master sign maker Kelsey Sharp to wheat-paste art on the building’s exterior so that even people who never stepped inside could be moved by it.

The Question That Started It All

Callahan spent time as a fellow in the contemporary art department at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and it was there that a question began to take shape.

“I kept looking at who owned the work,” she said. “How come the majority of the artwork doesn’t look like it’s from people that look like us? Why is it that the artwork is not owned and on loan by us?”

That question led to a collaboration with her colleague Kesha Williams, a gallerist at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and eventually to the founding of their organization the BLK Collectors. The two were further galvanized when Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys brought the Giants exhibit to MIA and shared that they had been told early in their careers to invest in artists like Andy Warhol rather than in artists who reflected Black culture.

“Somebody is deciding who and what has value,” Callahan said. “Instead, we should be the ones saying who and what has value, of us, for us, and by us at all times.”

The BLK Collectors

The BLK Collectors, which Callahan co-leads with Kesha Williams, is working to make the local Black art economy more accessible and navigable. The organization spotlights local artists, educates collectors on how to commission work and negotiate with gallerists, and connects people who want to buy and invest in Black art with the artists and spaces doing that work right now in the Twin Cities.

Callahan pointed to spaces already doing the work that deserve community support, including the Rojo Collective led by Cara and Christopher Aaron, Roberts Gallery in North Minneapolis, the Legacy Building, Mudluk Ceramics, and the work of Payton Scott Russell, the Rice Brothers, and others.

She is also developing a new idea she calls a progressive studio crawl, modeled after a progressive dinner, where small groups would move from artist studio to artist studio or gallery to gallery, sharing a meal and easing into conversations about art in an informal and accessible way.

“Food always helps,” she said. “It makes it feel more like we’re just hanging out in somebody’s living room. Makes it easier to approach somebody about something you don’t know.”

Growing Up the Only Black Person in the Room

Callahan was adopted into a white family in Minnetonka and grew up as one of the only Black people in her school, church, and community. As she got older and began learning more about Black history, culture, and feminist thought, she dove in hard, and Minnesota’s art world felt the impact.

“I was labeled the instigator in residence because I asked questions about why aren’t we here,” she said. “I would ask questions at galleries and say, how come people that look like me aren’t here? Why aren’t you advertising to them?”

She brought that same energy to nonprofit arts boards, where she consistently pushed organizations to examine the disconnect between who they claimed to serve and who was actually in the room.

What Is Coming Next

Callahan is serving as art director for Soul of the South Side, the Juneteenth festival in its fifth year, where she is curating a retrospective of five years of photographs taken by Emanuel and his team, displayed through the second floor of the Coliseum building.

“This free event is not free,” she said. “It is free for you to come to, but it is not free to build. So how do we continue to support these creatives outside of this one day?”

How to Connect

Follow the BLK Collectors on Instagram at @theblkcollectors and send a message to be added to Callahan’s listserv for first access to upcoming events. She works by relationship and word of mouth, and that is exactly where she wants to be found.