Voices of alumni: Art as a catalyst for change
An inside look at four University of Minnesota Twin Cities alumni who are creating community, justice and beauty through their art.
Over the years, the University of Minnesota has produced countless artists who have made their mark in Minnesota and far beyond. They’ve earned their degrees across the liberal arts — from the social sciences to the Schools of Music and Journalism — as well as fields like environmental science. And their creative output encompasses renowned photography exhibitions, social justice–oriented bands and choirs, and uncharted musical collaborations.
Dessa: Torch songs and an orchestra at her back
Spend some time talking with Dessa and you’ll realize what defines excellence in that dubious grade-school report card subject of “language arts.” She drops clever turns of phrase. And after just a few seconds of thought, she’ll answer questions in long sentences that turn into perfectly constructed paragraphs.
That unique communicative dexterity has served Dessa (BA, ’03) well in a multifaceted career that is both genre bending and genre blending.
A hip-hop artist at heart, she’s long been the lone female rapper in the Doomtree collective. But her solo records dial down the energy and amp up the poignancy, featuring an assortment of her signature “torch songs” (heartbreak, unrequited love, etc.) And in what has become a beloved partnership, Dessa has regularly collaborated with the Minnesota Orchestra for its Live at Orchestra Hall series.
Beyond the song lyrics is her written prose, with collections of essays including the book “My Own Devices: True Stories From the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love.” She’s written for the New York Times and National Geographic Traveler and has done a podcast with the BBC. And she’s no slouch at public speaking; her TED Talk — “Can we choose to fall out of love?” — explains her attempt to use neuroscience (and MRI equipment and expertise at her alma mater) to extinguish a troubling attachment to her ex. It has had a cool 4.5 million views to date.
Dessa grew up in South Minneapolis, was a whipsmart and driven youth, and became valedictorian at Southwest High School. She chose to study philosophy at the University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts, giving her a foundation for her art.
“I think that I reference my philosophy degree and the skills that it taught me to interrogate the world and to frame conflict more often now than I did five years ago or ten years ago,” she says. “Because the world is rife with conflict and with argument, and trying like we all are to navigate through what can sometimes feel like a social, political and emotional minefield — those tools have become all the more important to me.”
Her work with the orchestra now spans close to a decade. It has yielded a live album, “Sound the Bells,” and her one-off Skeleton Key (Lockdown Edition) video — with orchestra members recording their parts remotely — was a joyous interlude during the COVID pandemic.
What is it like to hear an orchestra playing behind you when you pause for a breath?
“It’s wild. It’s like being handed a kite, and then stepping outdoors into gale-force winds,” she beams. “The magnitude of the sound and the artistry is overwhelming.”
As Dessa continues to evolve, she’s trying to update her concept of self.
“I want to stay humble, but I don’t need to stay an underdog,” she says. “I want to recognize, clear-eyed, where I am and where I’m trying to be, and also be frank about, ‘This is how far I’ve come.’
“I think particularly in times that feel really socially fraught, which this time does, [with] all of us yelling up to the people in power, sometimes we can forget those few levers of power that we ourselves have access to. … What can you do from where you’re at right now? In addition to petitioning those who are many rungs above you in the hierarchical pyramid of human affairs, you yourself can make change too, and I don’t want to miss that fact as I’m making my daily choices.”
Wing Young Huie: ‘What’s a good photograph?’
Wing Young Huie hesitates to estimate the number of photographs he’s taken in a career that’s spanned some 50 years. More than a million, he figures.
He’s printed thousands — images included in his many exhibitions. But that leaves a majority stored in files at his South Minneapolis studio. And while he has plenty of inspiration for fresh projects, this backlog is top of mind as the celebrated photographer enters his 70s.
“At this point in my life, and for a while now, my main goal is to get what I’ve already done out into the world, rather than creating new work,” says Huie (BA, ’79). To that end, Huie last year teamed up with the Minnesota Historical Society, which has contracted to acquire 5,000 photographs from the artist over a five-year period.
Huie took some of the first of these million photographs shortly after earning his degree in journalism, when he signed up for a workshop with Garry Winogrand, a defining figure in postwar American street photography. Huie was inspired.
His exhibitions have likewise embodied a collaborative approach between artist and subject: “Frogtown: Portrait of a Neighborhood” (1995), “Lake Street USA” (2000) and “The University Avenue Project” (2010) were displayed in public — in vacant lots and storefront windows in the very neighborhoods documented.
Huie is fascinated by questions of individuality, culture and identity: what he calls a sociological approach. He traces this interest, in part, to his lived experience of growing up a first-generation Chinese American in Duluth, Minnesota, which he explores directly in the words and images of his 2018 book, Chinese-ness: The Meanings of Identity and the Nature of Belonging.
The Minnesota Historical Society was an early champion of Huie’s work; the organization awarded him a research grant in 1993, at the dawn of his career, and maintained the relationship, publishing several monographs based on his exhibitions.
As Huie pores over old contact sheets and negatives, he is seeing his work through new eyes. Photos that didn’t make the final cut for an exhibition suddenly make sense in this new context.
“There are so many thoughts and emotions that are evoked as I time-travel through this looking glass of 50 years’ worth of work,” he says. “I’m seeing not just the tens of thousands of people that I photographed, but also different versions of myself.
Adapted from Minnesota Alumni magazine.
Ahmad Anzaldúa: Music as an instrument for social change
When Ahmed Anzaldúa (DMA, ’19) arrived in Minnesota in 2016 to further his music education at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, he went looking for ensembles that played Latin American choral music. He didn’t find any. So he started one: Border CrosSing.
“When we started it was just me and a few friends putting on concerts, with the hope of attracting more diverse audiences,” Anzaldúa says. "It's grown to become a large nonprofit with a full-time staff, a professional ensemble and a community chorus. We publish music. We record. We go out to schools. We’re pretty active.”
In 2024, Anzaldúa received the Emerging Alumni Award from the College of Liberal Arts. His work with Border CrosSing alone would merit recognition. But that’s not the only thing he does. He’s also the director of music ministries at Unity Church and coeditor of the Justice Choir Songbook.
Anzaldúa grew up in northern Mexico in the only Muslim household for hundreds of miles. He learned trumpet and piano at a young age. He attended medical school for a year but shifted to music after winning a piano competition, moving to Minnesota after earning a master’s in choral conducting.
“I knew Minneapolis was a hotbed of choral music,” he says.
He not only jibed with the University of Minnesota, but the state. “The support for the arts here makes all my work possible,” Anzaldúa says.
Justice Choir remains close to his heart. The choir makes itself available to perform at vigils and protests. There are 15 chapters around the country. Composers submit songs and Anzaldúa helps publish them.
If he sounds busy, between conducting and performing as a classical pianist, it’s because he is. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I am in a highly improbable career, and I’m immensely grateful,” he says. He presses forward during times that can be turbulent with the belief that music can be healing. “I came to this country with great hope for the future,” he says. “I still hold that hope.”
He says he’ll continue to strive to make music and advance justice wherever he goes. “I will always be thankful for the many people and organizations that made my studies possible, and I make it a point to pay it forward at every opportunity.
Craig Minowa: The seeker
Craig Minowa (BS, ’97), who majored in environmental studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, is the frontman and songwriter for Cloud Cult, a “self-help indie chamber rock band” he formed in 1995. This fall, he wrapped up a run of sold-out shows supporting the band’s latest release, “Alchemy Creek” — which he wrote and recorded, while processing a painful divorce, in a studio on wheels. It is the band’s twelfth album.
Initially, Cloud Cult was a personal project. After leaving the University of Minnesota, Minowa worked for various advocacy groups, because music “felt like a selfish pursuit.”
As a door-to-door canvasser, he came up against the limits of persuasion on the merits of facts. “... But with the music, people could be changed instantly if you bring their emotions fully into it. I realized I can use music to move people in a way that can bring positive change.”
Music has always brought connection to the divine and healing, he says — an urgent need for Minowa after his and his then-wife and bandmate’s 2-year-old died mysteriously in his sleep in 2002.
Minowa’s writing process begins with meditation and “a mantra to try and get myself out of the way and be of service to something bigger,” he says. His ideal creative state is the hypnogogic space between sleep and arousal: “Your conscious brain is there, and your subconscious is fully there. That’s the spot,” he explains.
Praise from outlets like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, as well as strong showings on indie charts, broadened the band’s audience. Recent albums have included elaborate staging and ambitious side projects: the album “The Seeker” spun off as a one-hour movie starring Josh Radnor and Alex McKenna in 2016; a later collaboration included backing from the Minnesota Orchestra for a run of sold-out concerts.
The economic realities of the music industry, especially since the pandemic, put pressure on Minowa to simplify his approach.
“I was stepping out of this as my career, like, music’s just not going to pay the bills,” he says, when a friend encouraged him to check out Patreon — a subscription-based platform that gives fans exclusive access to his work. For Minowa, his roughly 1,500 Patreon members not only pay the bills, but also serve as a community.
A reluctant performer, Minowa says his stage persona has often felt like a necessary burden. It’s after the show, when he meets with his fans, that he really comes alive. “You talk to people and hear their stories. It would lift my spirits and my hope for humanity.”
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Our arts alumni are making a difference in communities around the world through creativity and leadership. The Maroon & Gold Scholars Fund supports students beyond tuition, helping meet basic needs like housing, books and supplies, and providing opportunities for undergraduate research so they can thrive in and out of the classroom.
