On October 5, alums Jacob Yeates '17 and Sishir Bommakanti '18 participated in Making It Real: Our History with Police and Our Future Without Them, presented by the Minneapolis collective MPD150 and held at New Rules in North Minneapolis. From MPD150, "Making It Real: Our History with Police and Our Future Without Them is an art exhibit exploring the power and possibility of a police-free community. Organized into “past,” “present,” and “future” sections, the exhibit follows the narrative arc of MPD150’s 2017 report—a community-led performance review of the Minneapolis Police Department on the 150th anniversary of its founding... The report goes on to explore what a police-free future might look like. How might Minneapolis change if the millions of dollars spent on punishing crime instead went toward preventing it, by funding the services and organizations that truly keep our neighborhoods healthy? More than just a policy paper, the report is a work of “visionary nonfiction,” an attempt to shift the culture and change the narrative. "The Making It Real exhibit continues that work. As exhibit coordinator Molly Glasgow states, “Through art that shares our true history while highlighting the strength of our communities and the resistance of those who came before, this exhibit gives us as a city the opportunity to step through time toward our police-free future.”" Jacob Yeates, is an artist and educator who is "particularly focused on visual narratives. Combining the use of traditional analog materials with digital collage techniques and pulling from a variety of historical, contemporary and even fictional narrative frameworks, his work looks to address systemic conditions of sociopolitical violence, most often within the context of the United States." Sishir Bommakanti is "a freelance illustrator from Minneapolis. His works exist on the fringes, exploring the corners of the weird, ancient, paranormal, morbid and everything in-between. His illustration works is a synergy of abstract narrative and experimental media." Photography by Shirin Ghoraishi. For more information: MPD150New RulesMaking It Real: Our History with Police and Our Future Without ThemJacob YeatesSishir Bommakanti Categories All Alumni