When filmmaker Rebecca Heidenberg and her husband, Gregory J. Smith, a fiction writer, moved to Minneapolis from New York City four years ago, they dreamed of opening a space for artists.
The pieces came together when their real estate agent showed them the northeast Minneapolis compound that used to be the home of former Walker Art Center director Olga Viso.
Dreamsong Gallery opened June 4. "It's like a lifelong dream," said Heidenberg.
The main house — a two-story, two-bedroom, three-bathroom space at 412 13th Av. NE. — has a spacious two-room gallery on the bottom floor and a living area upstairs. In the backyard, there is a cinema viewing room and a small coach house the couple plan to use for an artist residency.
Viso's artist husband, Cameron Gainer, had maintained an artist-run space that presented exhibits, performances, books and screenings. He and Viso put the property up for sale after she left the Walker in January 2018.
Heidenberg and Smith bought it in November 2019 for $1.1 million, according to Zillow, but waited before opening a gallery, renting out the space, the coach house and cinema to various artists. After the vaccine rollout this spring, the couple decided they were ready to press "play."
Dreamsong Gallery opened with the exhibition "A Glitter of Seas," an exploration of maternity through a vast array of work by female-identified artists, including a focus on self-representation of women and mothers of color.
Inspiration came from Heidenberg's experience of becoming a mother following multiple miscarriages and the loss of a baby, Owen. (She made a film, "The Water Children," a meditation on the physical and spiritual dimensions of loss and grief, for her MFA thesis in 2016.)
