Art All Night. Community All Year.

Saint Paul, Minn. – March 12, 2013 – Northern Spark announced today the partners that will be participating in the free, dusk-to-dawn, nuit blanche, which will ignite Saint Paul’s Lowertown in an explosion of urban art. The festival will be held on Saturday (into Sunday morning), June 8, 2013 from 9:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. with the main hub at Union Depot, hosting nearly 25 projects. Performances, visual arts, projected images, interactive media, and participatory events will bring together a multitude of artists who create art projects in partnership with numerous arts organizations at multiple venues. The public is invited to join this all-night adventure to see the city in a new light.

Volunteers are also needed for a range of interactive tasks. Click here for more information.

“With the reopening of the historic Union Depot, the continuing expansion and development of Lowertown businesses and the ballpark construction underway, the Lowertown district, known for its vibrant arts culture, is only becoming more lively. This unique festival is a wonderful way to showcase our arts community in a distinctive way,” stated Mayor Chris Coleman.

This year the festival expects nearly 72 projects in collaboration with 47 cultural organizations and sponsors.

A snapshot of projects include:

• A site-specific roving performance at Union Depot by artist Patrick Ganert blending history with fictional narratives from 1917 through today.
• A live installation by Monica Haller that sonically links the Upper Mississippi with the Louisiana bayous.
• St. Paul’s Big Table Studio and Printland Press team up with Minneapolis letterpress shop Lunalux to help visitors create travel-themed, handmade prints.
• The Schubert Club invites visitors to play a harpsichord and a fortepiano while overlooking the river from Union Depot’s windows.
• All-night crafty interventions on 4th St. related to art work at Minnesota Museum of American Art’s Project Space by Liz Miller, Andréa Stanislav and Randy Walker.
• The Center for Hmong Art and Talent bring its Fresh Traditions Fashion show to an unconventional runway at Union Depot.
• Art Shanty Projects will transform an out-of-the-way parking lot near the river into a site of artistic intervention and exploration.
• Works Progress, who brought the Mississippi Megalops to Northern Spark in 2011, returns with a sunrise river cruise aboard the Jonathan Padelford.

Additional partners involved include:

air sweet air • Hack Factory • innova Recordings • Landmark Center • Minneapolis College of Art and Design • Minnesota Children’s Museum • Minnesota Historical Society • Mizna • Minnesota Sacred Harp Singing Convention • mnartists.org • Minnesota Museum of American Art Individual artists and artist groups involved include:

Chris Larson, John Keston, Piotr Szyhalski, Monica Haller, Ben Moren and Daniel Dean, Jennifer Newsome Carruthers and Tom Carruthers, Roger Nieboer/lesser mortals, Paul Herwig, Christopher Field and Sarah West, Angela Olson and Gilberto Vazquez Valle

The festival is pleased to be working with Twin Cities Public Television (tpt) as our media sponsor this year.

About Northern Lights.mn

Northern Lights.mn presents innovative art in the public sphere, both physical and virtual, focusing on artists creatively using technology, both old and new, to foster new relations between audience and artwork and more broadly between citizenry and their built environment.