A Love Letter to Powderhorn Park

Southside artist on a year-long project to create a documentary film about Powderhorn

By Sascha Matuszak

A young woman I bumped into at the Art Fair in Powderhorn Park this past summer, a friend of mine from Punk Rock Kickball, confessed to me that “half the lake here is filled with my tears.” I had been shooting footage of the Powderhorn Art Fair for a documentary film I’m making about the park, and as we swapped stories about Powderhorn, she let that line fly. She delivered it with a laugh, but there was a gravity to her words that we both understood. There’s something sacred about this park in the middle of South Minneapolis, and many of us gravitate to it in hard times; we go there to celebrate good times, to be quiet alone, and to commune together. 

I’ve spent so many golden hours in Powderhorn Park, walking the oval around the lake, looping around the baseball fields, heading up to the flats and back down to the docks for another circuit. Thinking, hands clasped behind my back, listening to a friend’s advice, poking at an overthought knot in my heart. There are three thin cedars on 35th, right across from 13th, and I treat them like aunties who always wonder when I’m going to visit again, always ready to stroke my head. I burn incense in the needle-strewn grass between them; I’ve made cedar bough tea from the snow at their feet. 

The idea to make a film about Powderhorn Park crystallized over a couple of years. At first, I wanted to make a storytelling garden in the flats above the park; then I considered a photo essay of people who live and play in and around Powderhorn; finally, during the application process for a Creative Individuals grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, the outline for a documentary film focusing on Powderhorn Park and the Southside community took shape. I received the grant in March of 2025, and the film has consumed most of my free hours ever since. 

Framing the Story

Powderhorn is too storied, too diverse, too important for one film to cover. I figured that out pretty quickly, so much of the early part of the filming process was devoted to creating a framework that could hold a story, but allow for the freedom a documentary needs in order to allow the story to unfold naturally. I settled on the four seasons as the general framework, with the major events in each season as anchor points for the larger narrative arc:

• May Day in Spring

• Powderhorn Art Fair in Summer

• Bare Bones in Autumn

• Art Sled Rally in Winter

At the same time, I had to focus on a few communities and not get lost trying to film everyone, and thereby not be able to tell anyone’s story properly. This is a constant, ongoing risk. The events listed above help with that. Several communities weave in and out of the park, collaborating on events and rallies and meetings, and celebrations throughout the year. Certain people hold decades of stories, and certain others are involved with multiple projects. These things emerge over time, as I film the park and its people and birds and flowers; and as the park watches me work, and decides when and how to show me what it is I need to know. Some communities are vibrant, but insular, like the community center kids and the sports leagues; other communities pollinate each other, like Southside Battletrain, the puppeteers, and the many, many local artists and activists. 

I found myself letting go of control over how the filming went, what I managed to capture, and what I was merely allowed to witness. I shifted from journalist/documentarian to observer/participant and back again. I realized that my true goal was not to capture it all, but to cherish it all. The park came alive and played with me, flirted with my camera, painted itself for some shots, shrouded itself for others. This project became a conversation, and this film became less of a documentary and more of a love letter. 

The Project So Far

We have been filming since mid-April 2025 and expect to film until April 2026. I think we did a great job of filming the May Day Parade and the run-up to that seminal Southside Minneapolis event. We have so many beautiful shots of the park itself, the buds as they bloom, and the goslings as they grow. We finished Summer 2025 with a Clown Picnic and some dramatic sunsets. By the time this hits the Powderhorn Press, we should be filming the Bare Bones performances around Halloween and the Day of the Dead. In a few short months, the still winter will be upon us, and when the thaws hit, we should be wrapping and editing. We will screen the finished film next summer, in the park, on some glorious Southside summer evening. 

In the meantime, we’re looking for stories and support. Making a documentary is expensive, especially when we are trying to make it high-quality, so we’ve set up a GoFundMe for people to contribute what they can to the project. Every dime helps. At the moment, we’re funding it with our own cash; grant money has long since been spent. As for stories, we’re looking for the type of story my kickball buddy told me about earlier this summer during the Art Fair:

Stories of Powderhorn Park embracing you, embracing this community, holding space for us, celebrating with us, collecting our laughter and our tears, and storing them in the lake and in the leaves as they turn. 

Check out our Spring Trailer and our GoFundMe Page, and feel free to reach out anytime to me, Sascha, at sascha.matuszak@gmail.com or @firesnakedays on Instagram.

See you in the park!