Northern Spark Installation by Roman Verostko, Three-Story Drawing Machine, Minneapolis College of Art & Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2011, photo © Creative Commons by Northern Spark. Some rights reserved.
I walk in the tradition of the Night Owl, and revel in the sleepless rituals of nuit blanche. Tonight from 9pm to 6am, Liz and I will be traversing the Mississippi River (from Minneapolis to St. Paul and back!) to visit the art installations of Northern Spark. Various corners of the Twins Cities will be lit up from dusk until dawn with venues that include: the Mill City Silos, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, poetry at All My Relations Arts, the GLOW-a-BOUT at Loring Park near the Walker Art Center (open all night and featuring the Lullaby Experiment by Marcus Young, creator of Everyday Poems For City Sidewalk), and four site specific installations (see Three-Story Drawing Machine by Roman Verostko above) at my alma mater, the Minneapolis College of Art & Design.
The information below is from the Northern Spark Media Kit. The Northern Spark website includes a complete list of events that you can add to your own interactive map that charts your night’s events. You can also download and print this PDF of the Northern Spark Guide listing the details of each installation across the Twin Cities. Hope to see you at this community event for the Arts, public art at its best!
The Nuit Blanche Movement
The idea of a nuit blanche (translated as “white night” or “sleepless night”) is an art event/tradition first seen in St. Petersburg, Russia and Berlin, Germany in the mid 1990s and first named “nuit blanche” in Paris in 2002. Since that time, the idea of the nuit blanche has expanded dramatically becoming a popular art event in cities throughout the world.
Today, a Nuit Blanche event consists of art installations and events in public spaces and museums, art galleries, and other cultural institutions opening their doors free of charge to the public from dusk till dawn. In effect, the host city itself is turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), social gatherings, and other activities.
Besides St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris, nuit blanche events have taken place in Toronto, New York City, Tel Aviv, Santa Monica, and Montreal.
Northern Spark 2011
Spearheaded by Northern Lights.mn, Northern Spark is the first ever nuit blanche event in the Midwest. Northern Lights.mn is a roving, collaborative, interactive media-oriented, arts agency from the Twin Cities but 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 audiences and artwork and more broadly between people and their built environments.
Northern Spark will take place from June 4 (sundown ~8:55 p.m.) to June 5, 2011 (sunrise ~5:28 a.m.) at various locations along the Mississippi River and surrounding areas in Minneapolis and St. Paul. More than 60 artists from Minnesota, the surrounding area, and select locations across the country will be represented at the event.
Northern Spark Installation by Deborah Miller, Mill City Silos, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2011, photo © Creative Commons by Northern Spark. Some rights reserved.
Northern Spark:
First All Night Take Over Of The Twin Cities
MINNEAPOLIS, May 3, 2011 – It’s no secret Minneapolis St Paul is one of the leading centers of art in the United States. But on June 4 this year, the Twin Cities will join for the first time, the worldwide Nuit Blanche arts movement by hosting “Northern Spark,” the area’s first ever, all-night long arts festival.
For one night only, more than 60 regional and national artists together with the Twin Cities’ arts community will display new art installations at public places and unexpected locations throughout the city. Directed and produced by Northern Lights.mn and funded by the MN State Arts Board, Northern Spark takes place this summer from sunset on June 4 (8:55 p.m.) until the morning of June 5, 2011 (sunrise 5:28 a.m.).
“The Twin Cities has an amazing art culture and reputation,” says Northern Lights director, Steve Dietz. “Our aim is to really showcase that artistic excellence in a way never quite seen before by transforming the cities’ urban landscapes into a Twin Cites-wide art gallery for one special night.” The Northern Spark event will include a wide diversity of art forms and projects including multi-story projections, audio environments with vistas, installations traveling down the Mississippi on barges, houseboats and paddleboats, headphone concerts, and the use of everything from bioluminescent algae and sewer pipes for organs to more traditional media such as banjos and puppets.
One of the most highly anticipated installations is Jim Campbell’s “Scattered Light” from New York’s Madison Square Park, in which LED light bulbs suspended in a cube-shape on high tensile wire blink on and off to recreate the forms of pedestrians’ movements in three dimensions. Other artists involved in the nuit blanche include Christopher Baker, Phillip Blackburn, Body Cartography, Bart Buch, Barbara Claussen, Wing Young Huie, Debora Miller, Minneapolis Art on Wheels, Ali Momeni, Janaki Ranpura, Red76, Rigo 23, Jenny Schmid, Andréa Stanislav, Piotr Szyhalski, Diane Willow, Roman Verostko, Liu Xuguang, Marcus Young, and others.
The event is a collaboration — rarely seen on this kind of scale — of more than 40 partners each of which will sponsor one or more projects for the duration of the night. The goal is to showcase the urban splendor of the Twin Cities in a unique way, introducing a broad and diverse audience to innovative local and national talent in an inspiring journey through the night.
Northern Spark Installations: Wing Young Huie (TOP) by Nomad World Pub, St. Paul, Minnesota, Deborah Miller (BOTTOM) at Mill City Silos, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2011, © Creative Commons by Northern Spark. Some rights reserved.
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, June 4th, 2011
WOW! WOW! and WOW! again. Have agreat time, QM 🙂
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Thanks, annie! We are excited. The weather is PERFECT, a wonderful summer evening. We will be heading out soon. I tried to plan a route with the interactive map but will probably be using it as a guideline. I think we’ll be pretty spontaneous tonight, check the map, then travel to what feels like a good next step.
There are so many artists, it’s almost overwhelming. It came to me when I was in the shower a few minutes ago that you could probably take a chair, camp out in one of the many locations, and stay there all night and still be perfectly happy. I want the variety though and to take some night photography. So we’ll try to make the rounds. I’ll let you know how it is after I recover from sleep deprivation!
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I didn’t get up until 11am this morning! What an incredible experience it was to attend Northern Spark last night. Liz and I started out at listening to Rigo 23 at All My Relations Gallery and ended up at the Walker at 3pm. AMAZING NIGHT. We attended the St. Paul opening of Scattered Light. I’m speechless about the experience of light by the Mississippi River near the Science Museum in St. Paul.
I haven’t viewed my photographs yet but we did look at Liz’s this morning. Really amazing. I’ll try to do a follow up piece this week. I woke up thinking about how incredible it was to see crowds of people out viewing art in the middle of the night. Peaceful and calm, excited and energized. It was a wonderful experience all around. More to come as I process!
We got home at 4:11am in the morning. The birds were starting to sing. It was quiet and cool outside on a June Summer night. Thank you to all the organizers of Northern Spark!
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Sounds like it was great fun! Looking forward to your follow-up post. 🙂
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Robin, it was an amazing event. I wish it on every city. It transforms a city of thousands into light and art. Crowds of people out all night in places they wouldn’t normally walk at that hour. Some of the art installations were stories high. Still catching my breath. I wish I could have made it all the way to sunrise but lost steam at about 4am. Maybe next year. I saw a photograph from the top of the Foshay Tower at sunrise. Stunning. The Foshay was completed in 1929 and used to be the tallest building in Minneapolis.
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Dear Sleepless Night,
Thanks for educating us about this; I had never heard of it. What a gift these artists and all the coordinators gave.
I look forward to your pictures.
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Ditto re pictures – can’t wait!
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Still haven’t had time to view the Canon shots I took. Hope to get to them by the end of the week. Maybe Liz will let me post a few of hers. She had the Olympus out and also took some video that we haven’t watched yet. So cool to be shooting all this light in the dark. Thanks for stopping by, annie!
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Dear Teri,
I agree. The organizers did a fantastic job. It was a lot to coordinate across two large metro areas. I’m glad we got to visit St. Paul and Minneapolis. Made my night. I’m still catching up on sleep, still thinking about everything I saw at Northern Spark. Ah, maybe sleep is overrated. Who has time to sleep with so much great art around?
Signed,
Sleepless Night in the Twin Cities
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Sleepless Night,
In the intro to Keith Richard’s book “Life” he said because of lack time devoted to sleep, he’s lived three lifetimes. He was probably up for Northern Spark. Did you see him on the Stone Arch Bridge?
Signed,
One who needs a solid nine hours of REM
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Dear One who needs a solid nine hours of REM,
Oh, that’s who that was, hanging around near the falls! His new book is a memoir, right? I recently saw Keith Richards interviewed on one of the talk shows. Actually, I think he’s aged well, considering. Did you read his book?
Signed,
Can get by on only a few hours of sleep (but only if I make it up the next week)
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Night Owl-Monkey,
That’s so cool that Keith was on the bridge. I hope Liz got some video of the two of you chatting it up.
I’ve read the beginning of the memoir. The first chapter (about an incident with the Rolling Stones in Arkansas) is worth the whole book. Natalie played it for us on CD the last time I was in Taos.
One of my dreams is to go to a Rolling Stones concert. Wanna come?
REM
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REM,
Unfortunately, Liz had stopped taking video by the time we got to the Stone Arch Bridge. She was well into taking photographs with her Olympus. Maybe she snapped a few of Keith Richards. I’m not likely to read his memoir. But if you finish it, let me know how it is. I was surprised at how much he’s mellowed in his later years. I did like how he came off in the interview. I may have to pass on the Rolling Stones concert. No reason in particular. Except that I don’t know if I’m quite that wild anymore! I have a wild mind; not sure about the body. For that reason, I am glad I saw Prince when he was at his peak in the early 1980s. BTW, it’s Prince’s birthday today — June 7th. Have fun at the Stones concert. Maybe Liz will go with you!
The temp has dropped from 102 to 98 degrees in Minneapolis. Stay cool in the city!
Signed,
Not quite as wild as I used to be
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Dear Wild at Heart,
I’m thrilled you saw Prince in the 1980s. First Avenue and wearing purple? Maybe you have the Purple Rain vinyl at your studio.
Have you caught up on sleep yet?
Sleepy and hot in Minneapolis
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I am envious, this looks like a phenomenal way to spend an evening. From your list of cities, Seattle did not show up. I may need to contact the Artist’s Trust to find out if they are considering this.
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Jim and I enjoyed your Northern Spark “live-tweet” on FB, or do we call it “live-FB”? As I recall, Jim called you a “wild woman.” That she is, I told him. What a fabulous event and even more fabulous for a night owl like you. Glad you got to join it. Sounds like a huge first-time success. How many folks do you reckon attended? (love saying “do you reckon” hee)
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Roma, we had a great time at Northern Spark! It’s hard to guess at the attendance, since we probably only saw about 1/10th of everything that was available. I haven’t seen any numbers on the turnout. I do know that it was packed at the Stone Arch Bridge and outside the Walker way past midnight. I heard the Foshay was mobbed and there was a long wait for the elevator. I reckon I’ll have to do a little more research. 8)
It was fun to post a few photos on Facebook live as it was happening. It’s fun to post photos in real time. Though you never know how they really look until you get a chance to view them on your laptop. I’m so glad that Jim is on Facebook. He really seems to have taken to it. The photo I posted of Liz dancing in St. Paul was fun. I wish I remembered how to square dance! They were really going to town at Minnesota Book Arts. That was one of the best places to visit during Northern Spark. Such good energy.
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Oh, Roma, I just saw this on Twitter about the turnout at Northern Spark. About 25,000 people showed up! I’m adding the link here to Northern Lights. You can have them add a link to your own Northern Spark photos on their website. Here’s the link:
northern.lights.mn (LINK)
Thank you Twin Cities! We had an amazing time at Northern Spark on June 4. Lots of people did. About 25,000 people showed up in Saint Paul and Minneapolis to look at participate in and wonder about 100 projects at 34 different locations in collaboration with 50 organizations. Let us know if you have images to share and tag them with #NorthernSpark on flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and other sites.
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