Gratitude and What’s Next
Lightning Rod, sur la tableau avec lightning rod, Northern Spark 2021. Photo: Ryan Stopera.
Gratitude and What’s Next
We are filled with gratitude! Thank you for your messages of love and support upon the announcement of our planned sunset. Knowing how our projects have inspired and connected so many over the past decade helps ease the sadness of our necessary decision. We read them all, with tears and pride.
So, what’s next?
Aside from planning our final goodbye program, we are learning that there is a lot that goes into the dissolution of a 501c3 organization. This is something the non-profit sector doesn’t talk about very much! A fair number of resources tell you how to start an organization, but not so much how to end one. So we’re learning as we go. Here’s what we’re currently working on:
- Looking for an institution to preserve our digital and physical archives. If you have ideas, let us know!
- Brainstorming a framework and content for a publication about our decade + of initiatives
- Thinking about how to collect the hundreds of Northern Spark memories, and how to preserve these (see bullet point about an archive)
- Talking with watershed organizations to re-home the set and script for Aquanesia
- Tip-toeing into the legal paperwork required to formally dissolve.
All of this work will take us a little over a year from now to complete. Once we get past our final program in June, we’ll reduce our operations quite significantly to focus on archiving, giving away our physical stuff, and finishing our publication.
Details on the June program forthcoming!
Laura Brown, The Empathy Economy, Minneapolis Central Library, Northern Spark 2018. Photo: Hamil Griffin-Cassidy.
Remember when…?
Northern Lights.mn’s history is filled with the kind of uncommon memorable moments made possible by working with artists in public spaces. For the next several newsletters we’ll be sharing some of these in a little series called Remember When…? If you’d like to contribute to this growing memory archive, send us your story at sunset@northern.lights.mn!
Remember when we took over the Central Library for two nights and filled it with people and art projects?
As book lovers, some of our favorite projects were the programming partnerships we cooked up with local libraries. Staff at both library systems in Minneapolis and St. Paul were early adopters to the possibilities of a nighttime art festival, jumping in to be a venue in year one, and assigning staff to build and present the theater-infused hit experience The Night Library, for several festival years.
When staff at Hennepin County Central Library expressed interest in being a host venue for the 2018 festival, we were so excited. What could be better than hanging out at the library after hours? Well, we got our fill of that, in many after-hours meetings to plan the art projects layout and test our options for different lighting scenarios. (Turning lights on and off at Central is considerably more complicated than you’d think.)
Seeing the library filled with festival goers until 2 am that June, dancing across the or merely browsing the stacks, was a real dream come true.
“Northern Spark really changed my understanding of art, made me feel a sense of simultaneous adventure and safety in this city, which is a way of saying I found community here. It expanded what I believe is possible in libraries! I am so grateful.” – Margit Wilson, Librarian at Hennepin County Libraries
Thank you to everyone who was part of our collaborations with Hennepin County Library over the years. Stay tuned for more memories, including late-night fun at St. Paul Public Libraries!