(bright music) - We are creating joy and spreading joy through art and public trails in nature.

(bright music) Project 412 is a small non-profit placemaking organization.

We are based in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Project 412 has been in existence since September of 2022.

And we have one simple purpose, which is we are just trying to do cool stuff throughout Detroit Lakes.

Our mission is really to elevate the cultural and economic vibrancy of the 412 Lakes area.

We have just really kind of hit the ground running, doing a whole bunch of things, trying things, seeing what sticks, seeing what works.

We lit up the park, which was kind of a carryover from the Ice Palace days.

We did some pave people in the City Park.

We did a giant mammoth.

In the summertime, we do a series called Trucks and Tunes, and they're free concerts down in our City Park.

We got a grant from the Blandin Foundation to help fund murals in the community.

We worked with a variety of artists on our murals and our utility boxes.

Hannah Jurina is the artist who did all of our small art surprises.

We're just trying to find ways to celebrate the great local talent that we have.

(gentle music) This is Ortenstone Gardens and Sculpture Park.

This was a farm, but we've saved it, and instead of turning it into development, we're leaning into all the natural environments.

This land has a special nuance to it.

You can see big Detroit Lake from here.

There's great hills and valleys.

This is a beautiful area where the three biomes that come together in Minnesota are all here.

So you see deciduous trees, you see coniferous trees, you see the prairies and the grasslands.

We're working with a local artist named Hans Gilsdorf who's adding three bronze pieces to Ortenstone Gardens here, and those will represent the three different biomes.

- The sprites are Greek mythology.

They're spirits that are born of the earth itself that are protectors of nature.

And I thought that'd be kind of a fun storyline to kinda create three characters, three female forms that would actually represent these biomes.

And what I wanted to create was just a moment of reflection.

So when you're sitting there looking at these sculptures, you're taking in the female form, but at the same time, you're reflecting on why you're here in nature.

And it's to slow you down to respect and to be grateful of what's around us.

And just to take in all what's around you.

(gentle bright music) - Our first really giant project was the trolls.

The whole exhibit is called Alexa's Elixir.

So you start your troll journey with Alexa in the Detroit Lake City Park, and there's a book there that you can read and hear the story.

And then from there, you go to find the five other trolls.

Each of the trolls has a challenge for you.

For example, the troll behind me, her name is Barefoot Frida, and her challenge for you is to walk a mile barefoot.

And the idea is that, if you can find each of the trolls and do the challenge that each troll has, then you'll find the Golden Rabbit and defeat the Golden Rabbit.

(soft music) Olga Ziemska is a fabulous American Polish artist, and she does giant, large, natural pieces.

She really talks about how landscape informs her art and informs who we are as people.

The three pieces that are here right now are called Hear, Strata, and Ona.

They are just wonderful pieces.

You can stand there, you can talk about them.

You can just be in their presence and kind of feel the message that she as an artist was trying to convey.

(bright music) Charley Harper was an illustrator, a really prolific artist in the '50s and '60s and '70s.

There's 13 of his pieces in Ortenstone Gardens.

There's another 27 of his pieces at the Becker County Museum.

His pieces are really fun.

They're whimsical.

He talks about the animals and makes them almost like characters.

So we also added here out at Ortenstone Gardens a story walk about one of his books that highlights his illustrations written by Zoe Burke called "What's in the Woods?"

Jim Dolan is an artist out of Montana, and we commissioned him to do a piece called Togetherness.

It's in honor of our friend, Mark Knutson, who passed away a couple years ago.

It's two horses.

They are overlooking Detroit Lake.

When the sun is setting, they just glow.

They're just beautiful pieces.

(soft bright music) We're still trying to figure out the economic impact, but we know very, very conservatively that we've had over a hundred thousand visitors to see the trolls.

And coming here to Ortenstone Gardens, it's probably been about another 30,000 just this summer.

We know that people are staying in the hotels, they're buying gasoline, they're eating in our area restaurants, they're doing some shopping downtown.

And so we know the economic impact.

It is making a difference.

This Detroit Lakes area is extraordinary.

I mean, the people here are great.

They're creative, they're resilient.

They come up with really fun ideas and they embrace different things.

And I love that.

What we've thrown out for Project 412, the community has just been like, "Yeah, we want trolls."

There's so many different reasons art makes a difference, and I really wanna encourage people to know that art is everywhere.

It is in nature, but it's also in a sculpture that somebody makes.

It really has made a difference in Detroit Lakes, and we see that in other communities around the country and around the world.

- Art is everywhere.

Art is everything.

Whether it's music, poetry, sculpture, writing, design, everything.

Public art actually helps calm people down, helps 'em slow down, helps 'em appreciate and have respect and passion for their own communities.

But what this is gonna grow on to become is something I think that's bigger than any of us combined 'cause it's just a project that speaks of our community, the power of our community, and the abilities of what our community.

When it comes together with an idea, great things happen.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.