We recently juried a number of open calls, and selected an amazing group of artists to present work at Northern Spark on June 4-5. This is not a complete list, yet. These projects will join those presented by Northern Lights and our more than 40 partners, many of which are listed on the Northern Spark website. Congratulations to these artists and thanks to everyone who submitted proposals.

Emily Darnell, Molly Roth, Terese Elhard. The Snap Shot Shanty is a portrait studio and multipurpose art space used to facilitate projects with its attendees, which are documented in photo, video, and sound formats and then archived online. Beyond documentary-style portraiture,  past activities have included mask-making, caricature drawing and musical performances. New activities will be introduced for The Snap Shot Shanty’s new context including long exposure photographic experiments, illuminated storytelling, and choreographed light shows.

Daniel Dean and Ben Moren. Mobile Experiential Cinema is a roving, bicycle-mounted cinematic experience that takes advantage of the specific sites at which a film is created. A short narrative film will be created and then projected at at least 5 specific sites within Zones A,B, C & D with audience and projection team travel via bike between sites as part of the narrative arc of the film. Props and actions will be included at the physical site that mirror the content of the film and draw the audience into the experience of the film.

Ben Garthus. Creative Outpost is a nomadic social gathering point that unpacks from a car trailer and is devoted to facilitating creative, self-determined activities. Inspired by the free open-ended play of adventure playgrounds, which are common in much of Europe but are a rarity in the United States, Creative Outpost will not have a specific program but instead will have a variety of loose parts, old building materials, tools and open ended equipment that challenges participants to come up with their own activities.

Leslie Kelman and Mark O’Brien. Domestic Storefront is a small hut resembling a Minneapolis mixed-use building and having fabric over the windows, lit from within. Working from within through the night modifying the shape of the windows using needles, thread, wooden strips and staple guns our silhouettes are visible from outside for curious observers to follow the progress.

Osman Khan. Ceiling places a horizontally scanning laser at a city site. Apart from a drawing a line approximately 10 ft in the air on surrounding buildings , the laser is invisible, except when particulates pass through the beam, such as fog, mist, dust, steam from sewers, laundromats, individual smokers or strategically placed fog machines.  Oscillating between visibility and invisibility, Ceiling plays with the public’s perceptions and fantasies of invisible forces.

Mina Leierwood and Mike Haeg. Paradice on the Mississippi is a pair of dice shaped shanties that host many opportunities for families, friends and even total strangers to connect through gameplay. Activities include The Holy Roller, which alternates between transportation and game board; a table game based on the Art Shanty Projects; and play and pick up plans for some Scandahoovian yard games.

Norbert Lucas, Jerry Riess, Craig Mary Verhoeven. GPS Shanty is an octagon-shaped shanty. Visitors use the direction of a large three foot compass in the center of the octagon shanty to determine Norht, South, East or West, and then locate their town and place a note on the wall including their town’s name, what the town is most known for, or why they like the town. Maps and photos decorate the appropriate walls of the North, East, West, and South suburbs.

Aaron Marx. MAW Mobile Hotspot creates a mobile 4G hotspot and human-powered projection unit used to allow other artists or participants free wireless access. The unit will also be used for projection experiments utilizing live streaming technology.

Megan Mertaugh. To pull up. is a mobile film installation to be projected on homes that are in the process of foreclosure or are foreclosed within festival Zone D of Northern Spark. Moving from one house address to another using MAW’s mobile projection platforms to project onto the structural features of each property, To pull up. is designed to provide a visual voice for those individuals and families within our community who have recently lost or are in the midst of loosing their home, to tell their story.

The Notion Collective (Andy Dayton, Jason Bahling, Michael Eckblad, Candice Heberer, Jon Wohl). Station Identification is an audio installation on the Foshay Tower Observation Deck, which will serve as an aural map of Twin Cities  AM/FM radio broadcasting as well as transform the historic skyscraper into a broadcast tower for transmitting information about participants’ relationship to the radio landscape.

Angela Olson. wanderlust will be a night of journey, wander, and search. A group of wanderers travel from site to site, observing the events around them. and searching for their end destination.

Stephen Rife. Firefall is a live-action, pyrotechnic display involving a modified grain shovel marking regular intervals of the Northern Spark nuit blanche.

Carissa Samaniego and Bridget Beck. GLOW-a-BOUT is a nightlong city game meant for large-scale participation that combines the spirit of nostalgic night games and the Holi Festival to create a new event specific to Northern Spark and involves fortresses, flags, pigmented powders, teams, and glowing orbs.

Skewed Visions (Charles Campbell, Gulgun Kayim, Sean Kelley-Pegg). Please Remain Seated is a performance tailored for 15 bus drivers, driving the 15 Festival buses for the duration of Northern Spark. The material for the performances will explore the inner thoughts and intimacies in the urban environment as seen through the eyes of the driver and the routine of driving a bus.

Angela Sprunge, Dana Maiden , Julie Kesti , Scott Kesti, Kaara Nilsso. In Art Swap Shanty adults and children are invited to swap an object of their creation for someone else’s. Our mantra- “if you call it art, we call it art.” Art Swap is fun, interactive, community building, economically and resource friendly, recession trendy, and contagious.