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.

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