Northern Spark is a new MN Festival modeled on a nuit blanche or “white night” festival – a dusk to dawn participatory art event along the Mississippi and surrounding areas.

Save the date!

Northern Lights.mn received start up funding from the MN State Arts Board and Northern Spark will take place the evening of June 4 (sunset 8.55 pm) till the morning of June 5, 2011 (sunrise 5.28 am).

Our goal is make Northern Spark a world-class event that focuses on Minnesota-based artists, pushes the boundaries of contemporary art, transforms the urban environment into a city-wide art gallery, includes a diversity of participating organizations from partner non-profits to commercial sponsors to “mom and pop” businesses, involves a broad and diverse audience who are not regular attendees of traditional art venues, and showcases the natural and urban splendors of the Twin Cities.

In addition to a number of invited local, national, and international artist projects, there will be open, juried calls for at least 10 additional artists and 10 venues to each receive support for projects at Northern Spark.

Presented by

Northern Spark is directed and produced by Northern Lights.mn in collaboration with the Spark Festival and with the support of numerous participating organizations and institutions.

Northern Lights.mn

Northern Lights.mn is a roving, collaborative, interactive media-oriented, arts agency from the Twin Cities for the world. It presents innovative art in the public sphere, both physical and virtual, focusing on artists creatively using technology, both old and new, to engender new relations between audience and artwork and more broadly between citizenry and their built environment.

Spark Festival

Now in its eighth year, the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts gather creators and performers of new media arts from around the world to the Twin Cities to showcase their groundbreaking works of music, art, theater, and dance that feature use of new technologies.

Participating Artists

Participating artists to date include: Christopher Baker, Body Cartography, Jim Campbell, Barbara Clausen, Phil Hanson, Wing Young Huie, Minneapolis Art on Wheels, Ali Momeni, Janaki Ranpura, Jenny Schmid, Andrea Stanislav, Piotr Szyhalski, Diane Willow, Roman Verostko, Marcus Young, and others.

Participating Organizations

Participating organizations to date include: Forecast Public Art, Intermedia Arts, Kulture Klub, Le Meridien Chambers, Macalaster College, McNally Smith College of Music, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota Museum of American Art, mnartists.org, Public Art Saint Paul, ro/lu, Soap Factory, SooVac, The W Foshay, Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum

Supported by

This activity is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

Join Us

[...] a new large scale video projection for the Northern Spark Festival this summer in Minneapolis, MN. http://northern.lights.mn/2010/10/northern-spark/ This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Events, [...]

Hi, Colin, is it too late to send you a proposal? I’ve been swamped with work. the website is up. please check it out. I can do river flag installations. It will look nice. ping

I understand from an email that part of this event will be “greenwashing” the Hennepin County/Covanta garbage incinerator. This is disgusting. Art in the service of evil.

From an email from Hennepin County Commissioner Jan Callison:

“Approved the use of the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) exterior walls for an artistice [sic] light projection display highlighting processes from within the facility that convert waste to energy. The light display is part of the Northern Lights’ Northern Spark Art Festival June 4-5″ [garbage incinerators don't "convert waste into energy," they convert it into toxic waste and air pollution].

Please remove this from your event!

Alan Muller

Give us equal time & we can show you that the HERC (Hennepin Energy Recovery Center) is simply WASTING ENERGY — & resources! Not to mention they are poisoning our air with heavy metals such as mercury & arsenic & life-threatening dioxins.
For some cold facts, see: “NAB Powerpoint Presentation Re: HERC Expansion” on our “Energy Info” page at: http://www.neighborsagainsttheburner.org/energyinfo
The HERC is also contributing to climate shift (global warming) “For every pound of garbage burned, 3.67 pounds of carbon dioxide go up the stack; this translates to 164,456 tons of C02 from HERC annually”
Art is being used to “pretty up” a very toxic operation; using art to “greenwash” is an immoral act & a disservice to the public interest. Please exclude this so-called “art” — in reality P.R. spin for HERC — from your Northern Sparks Festival!
Sincerely,
Jan Greenfield, NAB webmaster

Using art to make this toxic spewing burner look nice and good and warm and fuzzy when this garbage burner
is at the heart of a huge grass roots controversy about a 21% expansion is using art
to promote this evil entity.
This garbage burner should not have been built.
It should not expand. To put art on it is like putting lipstick on a pig. What were you all thinking?
Please reconsider making this a part of your event. Go to our website to educate yourselves about the terrible health effects of this and other garbage and biomass incinerators.
Thankyou for your consideration in this matter.

Nancy Hone. coordinator/founder Neighbors Against the Burner in St. Paul, Minnesota

Hi: I’m interested in a proposal, and would like to do a festival of lights in Duluth MN. We have an amazing number of interesting objects, buildings, and “stock piles” on which to project images and movement. I am with UMD, and have many connections to heavy industry/shipping. I think we could do something amazing in conjunction with other events and activities.

Looking for someone to talk with….

Cheers, Dale Bergeron

Will Northern Lights be up this year?