INDIAN MOUNDS CULTURAL LANDSCAPE STUDY + MESSAGING PLAN
The Indian Mounds Cultural Landscape Study and Messaging Plan presents a difficult and thought-provoking challenge: How can we change a community’s perception of this landscape — an Indigenous place of burial drastically altered over the last two centuries to function as a public park — toward a perspective that is informed, empathic, and respectful of its sacredness? The Interpretive Plan describes a comprehensive set of strategies for messaging that aim to transform the perception of the sacred Dakota burial mounds from a park for picnics, barbecues, and play, to that of an Indigenous place of burial to be respected and honored.
As part of a larger Cultural Landscape Study led by Quinn Evans, the Messaging Plan supports a holistic proposal to gradually phase park features and activities out of the site to protect this sacred burial ground. Messaging, themes, and stories were arrived at through an iterative and collaborative process with the Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs), the Project Advisory Team (PAT), the community and the City of St. Paul Parks and Recreation Department. Direct engagement and consultation with the THPO’s—from the Upper Sioux, Lower Sioux, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, Prairie Island, and Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin communities—was essential to this process.
Location: St. Paul, Minnesota
Client: City of St. Paul
Status: Plan Completed in 2020
Area: 111 acres
Team: TEN x TEN, Quinn Evans, Allies LLC / Mona Smith
Awards: 2021 ASLA National Honor Award for Analysis and Planning
This place is not a park- it is a sacred burial place that has existed here for thousands of years. Communicating the sacredness and boundlessness of this place is done through a variety of messages and features that aim to build respect and restore dignity. Returning community relationships to this place to that of a place of burial and not a park requires education, time, and willingness. Through time messaging will shift as the perception of this place slowly evolves. Messaging has the capacity to hold many different questions and to answer these questions by weaving stories and ideas together along a common thread throughout the site. Messages are intended to teach, to expand a visitor’s capacity to imagine what this place was and could be, and to communicate complex — and at times challenging or painful stories — to increase empathy and understanding.
The Messaging Plan is organized around six Key Messages communicated through two frameworks for messaging — Site-Wide Messaging that spans the entire site and Area Messaging, that consider opportunities to engage with features on site in greater specificity and in a more meaningful and powerful way.
SITE-WIDE MESSAGING
Site-wide Messaging is delivered through three strategies – Immediate Acknowledgment, a Threshold of Cues, and Digital Media. All three approaches ensure that the key message of Respect + Honor is consistently conveyed across the site, regardless of where one is located. The intention of Site-wide Messaging is to communicate that “This is a Sacred Burial Ground’’ and to inspire people who come here to behave with dignity and respect. Through the integration of native and culturally significant plants—such as white sage, coneflower, and native grasses—cues, benches, artful interventions and signage, enlightened behavior can emerge from a deeper understanding of the value and deep power of this place. The Immediate Acknowledgment phase is currently underway and will include necessary signage across the site, including digital media tied to signage, where visitors can watch recordings of Dakota people on site telling stories about the significance of this land.
SITE-WIDE MESSAGING AT THE THRESHOLD OF CUES
The threshold acts as a consistent band of messaging, spanning across the site. Within this band, native planting, benches, steppingstones, plant markers, and flag signs share messages of Dakota Land and the necessity of honoring this place. To avoid disruption of the ground, all proposed features are either self-supported and do not require footings or are utilizing existing features’ footings.
THRESHOLD OF CUES PHASING
As guided by the phasing plan, the Threshold of Cues evolves over time as the community adjusts to changes in the park. Starting as a clear band of healing native plantings significant to the Dakota people bisected by paths of stepping stones, the plants eventually expand, reintroducing prairie across the site.
AREA MESSAGING
Messaging at specific areas throughout the site is an opportunity to encourage pause and reflection through focused features deeply tied to a particular place. These features prompt people to slow down and seek out specific points of interest in the surrounding landscape and to awaken their sense of curiosity and imagination. The features and exhibits created across the site are organized into three approaches – Core Messaging, Gateway Messaging, and Educational Messaging. Core Messaging is concentrated at the areas of confirmed burial along the bluff, and therefore messaging and healing is most sensitively developed at these features. Gateway Messaging identifies the east and west entries into the park as key opportunities for clear and explicit messaging to passers-by that they are entering a sacred place, while Educational Messaging occurs primarily at the woodland trails and landscape spaces further from the mounds. The intention of the Area Messaging features is to create powerful and lasting experiences that alter the perception of this place for non-Indigenous visitors and that make Indigenous people feel more welcome in this place that is their home.
CORE + PARKING LOT EVOLUTION
Core Messaging is concentrated at the areas of confirmed burial along the bluff, and therefore messaging and healing is most sensitively developed at these features. This existing parking lot preparation requires extreme sensitivity in its treatment of the ground as burial mounds were located here. Breaking pavement to allow water to percolate is important for reconnecting this ground to natural systems.
AREA MESSAGING AT THE WEST GATEWAY
Gateways recognize an opportunity to remind those passing by or through the site that they are in an Indigenous place of burial. Gateway Messaging identifies the east and west entries into the park as key opportunities for clear and explicit messaging to passers-by, while Educational Messaging occurs primarily at the woodland trails and landscape spaces further from the mounds.
CORE MESSAGING AT THE PAVILION
Messaging at specific areas throughout the site is an opportunity to encourage pause and reflection through focused features deeply tied to a particular place. The park pavilion was constructed on burial mounds. Recommended messaging communicates the gradual evolution of this pavilion over time, including the roof removal and partial brick column deconstruction.