Pick up a FLO(we){u}R seed-shaker bomb and visit this performative installation that turns The Soap Factory into a WWI dummy bomb factory.
Ai Minnesota’s sidewalk & parking lot become the gallery for interactive digital artwork and animations by Ai students and faculty.
Ten youth from the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center investigate and address how elements such as wind and solar power affect the environment.
Spark in the Park: Make a zine under the glowing “think” sign, and partake in luminescent games under the “wonder” sign. The two collide in a dance party on the hour.
Yarn-bomb your bike (or yourself) until you glow, or make your own luminary! Enjoy a Swedish-style hot dog and luminous live music by the Eclectic Ensemble, and off you go . . .
Featuring dance performance in an immersive electronic music and video environment, In Habit: Living Patterns explores the collectively learned habits we practice in our everyday lives.
Ai Minnesota instructor and digital artist, Tim Armato, and UX Designer and musician, Brian Rowe create a continuously evolving photo and sound stream.
NOT TO SCALE is a performative large-scale installation that will happen during the course of the night. We invite viewers to look up and marvel at our message to the night sky.
Bring your bike to make your own Treadprint poster to take home or hang in our outdoor gallery.
Discover an endangered landscape that challenges conventional green roof design and be awed by a spectral tamarack forest projection.
Real-time video connects festival-goers in Minneapolis to neighbors in St Paul as they dine together through our commensal portal.
GLOWaBOUT combines the spirit of nostalgic neighborhood games and the Indian Holi Festival to create a wild event that glows, sparkles and excites!!
This illuminated parade, with a 40-piece marching band, will transform the Stone Arch Bridge into a psychedelic art corridor with LEDs and black lights.
Join the Bell Museum of Natural History as we capture the night with sound, light, and art; learn stories of the stars; and call in the creatures of the night.
Join the Bell Museum of Natural History as we capture the night using sound, light and art; learning stories of the stars and calling in the creatures of the night.
Help us catalog this amazing diversity of flying, crawling and jumping life through the art of sketching.
Use a bat detector to hear the ultrasonic sounds a bat makes converted into a symphony of clicks and whirrs audible to human ears.
Take an interactive tour of the latest Earth and space science discoveries! We begin at the Earth and travel 13.7 billion years back in time to the limit of what astronomers can detect, and will visit any astronomical object you would like to see along the way.
Dakota science educator Jim Rock will take us on a comprehensive journey of the night sky as the indigenous people of Minnesota see and understand it.
Celebrating all that makes ice fishing a wonderful Minnesota pastime.
A special free performance of the Brave New Workshop’s legendary late night improv. Hilarious unscripted comedy in swanky new downtown digs!
Target’s South Tower lights up with a new project by Jim Campbell, creator of last year’s spectacular Scattered Light installation.
Seven Minnesota artists will each sculpt a three-dimensional wooden object, which will be exhibited in the Cargill Lounge of the Walker Art Center and then liberated by sacrificial burning.
Experience the healing power of the arts—nature-based “retreats” with videography and guided imagery, drumming, movement mandalas, and more!
Join Minnesota artists and patrons at one of this summer’s CSA pick-up sites.
MacPhail gives life-changing music learning experiences to people of all ages and backgrounds, connecting with our community through music instruction and performances.
Mobile Experiential Cinema is a multi-location projected cinematic experience with live performance, explored while biking, through the lens of the mystery genre.
Swing Hall, Swing All: How do you like to go up in a swing? Up in the sky so dark? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing you can do at Northern Spark!
Warm up the Greenway with a jazz concert, posters printed by bike, a 15-piece orchestra, and improvisational song, dance, and storytelling.
Come celebrate nature as a majestic white oak is given the party it deserves. Rave aims to put the sparkle back in this king’s crown.
Shed your layers at a rare off-ice appearance by the Dance Shanty, where we collectively blur, pop and lock the boundaries between artists and observers.
Public social space is permanently changing. iLounge offers a social stage to create a temporary community for a minute, an hour or an evening. iLounge is instant, interim and interactive.
Contribute your artistic skills to sparkler conversations! As you spell out words with a sparkler, we photograph your words and document the conversations throughout the night.
See selections from the best of the MN-made shorts program at this year’s MSP International Film Festival at this late-night outdoor screening.
Four Seasons Dance Studio jumpstarts the evening with swing dance demos at 9pm. A mix of styles to follow! Tap your toes and join us.
See lighted bike projections on the walls of the Midtown Bike Center. Presented by Freewheel Bike.
Spark3DS an exhibition of printed Sculpture, desk top digital 3D Printers & mini symposium on 3D print tech: Jun. 9th-Jul.30th
Live painting, projections, sculptures, and sound animate this gallery debut and grand opening show.
Electricity’s essential beauty, mystery and significance will be reasserted by a spectacular large-scale kinetic spark sculpture and accompanying video installation.
Join us for an electric spectacle of magnetic lightning bugs and hand-printed lanterns along a glowing Lake Street. Stick around for live music and wood-fired pizza!
A series of shadow shows is performed inside a beautiful gypsy Vardoo. The performers play inside while viewers enjoy shiny shadow imaginary from the outside.
HOTTEA (Eric Rieger) will create a beautifully elaborate yarn installation in Target Park with collaborators and recycled materials.
The Wonder/Think Project offers a spontaneous glimpse into the lives of others by exploring what people worldwide are thinking about and wondering about right now.
Door to the River: Enjoy a live sound/video performance that evolves and builds throughout the night. Cycling waves and rhythms overtake each other in this improvisational piece.
Get published on an old-fashioned letterpress at Northern Spark! Follow @shantyquarian for prompts & tag your tweets with #shantyQ.
The ICE-Cycles Collective started at the Art Shanty Projects in 2012. These cyclists will roam the Greenway and other Northern Spark events promoting the bike as the ultimate form of year-round transportation and personal expression.
Illuminated art bikes will gather for a parade and performance across Sabo Bridge.
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre presents Star Spectacle, with music, dance, and masks.
Follow the Jack Brass Band—a New Orleans–style brass band—as it performs in three locations on the Greenway. Meet at 9 pm near the Midtown Bike Center.
PixelTron150 is a giant LED screen made of 150 oversized pixels, and hosts an original arcade game created for Northern Spark.
Shin’m Piñata is an interactive audiovisual environment. Colorful candy forms your body shape, then explodes in response to your movement.
Landscape of the Mind explores the relationships of landscape, imagination and experience in a variety of media.
A park pavilion transforms into the habitat for a school of squirmy critters—a place to dance and play with these imaginary nocturnal beings.
I will travel through the festival zones on foot with a lantern, finishing at the river. I will lie down on my raft to rest, and my friends will convey me safely down the river.
TönöSauna is a mobile wood-burning sauna and new media platform with parametrically designed interiors where people can relax and learn.
Bikers will visit Northern Spark projects along the Midtown Greenway with GoPro video cameras. Live video feeds will be projected on the Midtown Bike Center and nearby walls.
Using the window of the Skyline Room as a screen, The Eye of the Walker watches over Minneapolis from dusk ’til dawn.
The Weisman Art Museum opens all its current exhibitions for the entire night. Take a flashlight tour with the Weisguides or visit your favorite masterpiece in the middle of the night. Free.
Recycled T-shirts, a product of fast fashion, rain down on the viewer, highlighted by
LEDs and electroluminescence.
An attraction unlike any other*. The Greatest examines the idea of the spectacle before the spectacle and the strangely compelling social role that anticipation plays in adding gas to the fire of wonder.
Join us to hear local stories of the strange and unexplained, as well as share your own. Be careful though, once you find out what’s in your neighborhood you may not want to return home until morning!
Letterpress artists printing wood-type posters—a new design each hour! Visitors can submit poster ideas & take a free limited-edition print.
Learn how a dozen artists, designers, and entrepreneurs, all MCAD alumni, have transformed the cultural landscape in Minnesota and beyond.
A realtime portrait of the night, Bump reveals nocturnal narratives shaped by people’s stories and the changing environment of the city.
Observation Tape Deck: listen to a collage of recorded messages at the top of the historic Foshay Tower, then leave your own behind for others.
Watch bikers participate in the Greenway Glow, a fundraiser for the Midtown Greenway Coalition. Bikers will compete to see who can get the most lights—and most creative lights—on their bikes. The ride will start soon after 9 pm.
View youth perspectives on what makes a Community of Peace as told through their own photographs, installed on utility boxes throughout Downtown East.
Address
Pick up a walking tour map at Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue
Minneapolis
The MIA’s Target Wing is open all night! Come over & stroll through our galleries or just hang out under the stars in Target Park.
A convergence of art and design at the Water Works park site, including sculpture, a horticulture exhibit, and landscape lighting.
Inspired by John Cage’s aleatory experiments in musical, written, and visual composition, MCBA hosts a night of printmaking, sound installation, and performance.
Patty Mitchell & Robert Lockheed work with community orgs & teen artists with contributions from across our cities. Bring your imagination!
Drawing Club invites local artists and the public to grab a pencil and add contributions to an evolving pool of pieces over the course of the night.
Come join MNKINO for short videos inspired by the word “trail.” MNKINO is a monthly excuse for anyone to make a film and to meet others who like doing the same.
Exhibit your creative power and see images taken with your iPhone projected stories high on the Pillsbury Silos during the festival.
Using high resolution projectors, live multi layer playback technology and stage lighting, Michael will project massive images collected through the ice along with his visual thoughts.
Some strange and beautiful flora bloom only at night, including these giant, intricate cardboard flowers that make you wonder if you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.
An interactive shadow show of miniature proportions on the walking bridge. Six tiny automatons inspired by creatures that thrive at night.
Watch out for the Two Wheel Tour, the cities smallest theatre trails behind Open Eye’s shiny tandem bicycle to present “A Parade of Oddities” which promises to light up the night with miniature spectacle.
Paper Darts and the Loft invite you to forget for one playful night what makes dreams unreal.
An exhibit & salon by Margaret Pezalla exploring the potential of modeling speculative landscapes: places beyond what we can see: the extramundane.
Join artist Margaret Pezalla-Granlund for a visual journey to the surface of Mars, guided by the photographs, drawings, and writings of Earl C. Slipher.
Inspired by tall tales of ghostly creatures inhabiting the Stone Arch Bridge, Sleepers Awake transforms a crumbling arch into the lair of one of these luminescent beings.
The Peloton uses audience-generated pedal power to run lights and moving set for a show. A changing soundscape gives the feeling of a group ride.
Visit with owls and other raptors outside the museum with trained educators.
Visit with owls and other raptors outside the museum with trained educators.
Car Dreams explores the car as an intermediary between realms: parked on a street, its windows show videos of landscapes and lives affected by our dependence on oil.
Sit ’n’ Spin Shanty encourages groups to work together to make a giant pod spin from the inside out. Side effects include laughter and nausea.
Capitol HILL: an absurd and engaging take on government with twin transparent domes, mustaches, spontaneous departments, and Mad-Lib speeches.
1000 festival-going cyclists are given blinking red safety lights that synchronize with each other like fireflies.
20 performers will gather to tell an animated story through movement and visual transitions by manipulating an Apple iPad. Accompanied by an acoustic sound score.
A micro-projection event on the walking bridge featuring tiny demons and other nocturnal beasts that plague your subconscious during the night hours.
Transform yourself in a surreal Victorian fashion attic. Thee @_SashayShantay is a fantastic den of treasure hunting and fashion exploration!
This says it all about the night of Northern Spark, and Robin says it bridge-size, to be seen and pondered from miles around.
21% is an interactive sound installation that invites visitors to influence a sound collage in collaboration with the trees of Target Park.
Experience the Mississippi River from the perspective of the Dakota, with sounds of nature interwoven with Dakota voices, accompanied by video projections.
An invitation to participate in simple meditative Tai Chi movements to “greet the day.”
See you at the 8th annual Ten Second Film Festival with our hosts @MPLSTV.
See Hedge Magic and experience Jess Hirsch’s tent revival with tarot readings, exorcisms, and sound, and help David Hamlow build a room-sized cardboard structure.
In this video, a computer dubbed “The Serendipity Machine” continuously shuffles 3,000 shots, 80 voice-overs, and 150 pieces of music, creating an ever-changing story. Artist’s Cinema is made possible by generous support from Elizabeth Redleaf.
Start off the night with food and drink by Bryant Lake Bowl and music in our gallery. Check out our current exhibit Unlanded Margins and party with Greenway Glow riders.
Take-Up Productions presents the silent classic The Black Pirate accompanied by a haunting soundtrack composed and performed by The Poor Nobodys and recorded during a live performance at the Trylon microcinema.
Peek into a giant birdhouse and watch an artist at work. Barter for an original artwork at this unique trading post.
Vine Arts Center opens its 2012 Spring Member Show and features the light work of Light the Underground on the Midtown Greenway.
SHIFT explores how the intentions and actions of each individual contribute to a sustainable, ever evolving community.
Local musicians gather for a series of intimate concerts around a campfire at Open Field. From 2–3 am, local writers, comedians, and storytellers join in to exchange tales under the moonlight.
Artist interventions and activities plus select galleries are open all night with special one-night-only installations of artworks from the collection.
Throw your body into this game of Pong: using your silhouette instead of paddles in this interactive projection, you experience the game like never before.
Join the Weisguides for these interactive tours, and be prepared to engage all your senses. View art in a new way, with only a flashlight as your guide.
Gear up for the morning hours with caffeinated beverages and high-energy unplugged live music from Sleeping in the Aviary and Buffalo Moon.
The very best acoustic, spoken word, and avant-garde street performances in the Romanesque-revival remains of the Metropolitan Theatre.
“Mom’s Cookies” is a video projection of modern home cooking that commemorates St. Anthony Falls as the birthplace of packaged foods.
tuning the sky is a pop-in, illuminated cyclorama. Immerse yourself in a halo of atmospheric color that fills the horizon around your head.
Midnight Mario: Drop into the 8-bit world as you jump and your shadow breaks a coin brick. Leap the robotic jump rope and you become Mario’s stunt double.
Light Fall: Pass under a bouncing stream of glowing Superballs, then take a seat at the bicycle conveyor belt to control the flow in this hypnotic installation.
Beijing Film Academy + UMN students invite you to a quest for cultural meanings + histories of Yellow River + Mississippi River.
Artists and faculty Tetsuya Yamada and Clive Murphy present a mobile pizza-oven-calliope-projection unit.
Join us for group yoga and meditation while the sun sets, followed by a play inspired by poets Rumi and Hafiz.
Stop and reflect at a whimsical, inspiring roadside shrine to imaginary animal saints that embody different aspects of cycling.
21% is an interactive sound installation that invites visitors to influence a sound collage in collaboration with the trees of Target Park.
Experience the healing power of the arts—nature-based “retreats” with videography and guided imagery, drumming, movement mandalas, and more!
Learn how a dozen artists, designers, and entrepreneurs, all MCAD alumni, have transformed the cultural landscape in Minnesota and beyond.
Local musicians gather for a series of intimate concerts around a campfire at Open Field. From 2–3 am, local writers, comedians, and storytellers join in to exchange tales under the moonlight.
Visit with owls and other raptors outside the museum with trained educators.
Live painting, projections, sculptures, and sound animate this gallery debut and grand opening show.
An interactive shadow show of miniature proportions on the walking bridge. Six tiny automatons inspired by creatures that thrive at night.
Use a bat detector to hear the ultrasonic sounds a bat makes converted into a symphony of clicks and whirrs audible to human ears.
Dakota science educator Jim Rock will take us on a comprehensive journey of the night sky as the indigenous people of Minnesota see and understand it.
See lighted bike projections on the walls of the Midtown Bike Center. Presented by Freewheel Bike.
Throw your body into this game of Pong: using your silhouette instead of paddles in this interactive projection, you experience the game like never before.
A realtime portrait of the night, Bump reveals nocturnal narratives shaped by people’s stories and the changing environment of the city.
The very best acoustic, spoken word, and avant-garde street performances in the Romanesque-revival remains of the Metropolitan Theatre.
Capitol HILL: an absurd and engaging take on government with twin transparent domes, mustaches, spontaneous departments, and Mad-Lib speeches.
Paper Darts and the Loft invite you to forget for one playful night what makes dreams unreal.
Join the Bell Museum of Natural History as we capture the night using sound, light and art; learning stories of the stars and calling in the creatures of the night.
Join the Bell Museum of Natural History as we capture the night with sound, light, and art; learn stories of the stars; and call in the creatures of the night.
Car Dreams explores the car as an intermediary between realms: parked on a street, its windows show videos of landscapes and lives affected by our dependence on oil.
Come celebrate nature as a majestic white oak is given the party it deserves. Rave aims to put the sparkle back in this king’s crown.
Ten youth from the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center investigate and address how elements such as wind and solar power affect the environment.
Experience the Mississippi River from the perspective of the Dakota, with sounds of nature interwoven with Dakota voices, accompanied by video projections.
Join Minnesota artists and patrons at one of this summer’s CSA pick-up sites.
Stop and reflect at a whimsical, inspiring roadside shrine to imaginary animal saints that embody different aspects of cycling.
MacPhail gives life-changing music learning experiences to people of all ages and backgrounds, connecting with our community through music instruction and performances.
Four Seasons Dance Studio jumpstarts the evening with swing dance demos at 9pm. A mix of styles to follow! Tap your toes and join us.
Gear up for the morning hours with caffeinated beverages and high-energy unplugged live music from Sleeping in the Aviary and Buffalo Moon.
Door to the River: Enjoy a live sound/video performance that evolves and builds throughout the night. Cycling waves and rhythms overtake each other in this improvisational piece.
Drawing Club invites local artists and the public to grab a pencil and add contributions to an evolving pool of pieces over the course of the night.
Start off the night with food and drink by Bryant Lake Bowl and music in our gallery. Check out our current exhibit Unlanded Margins and party with Greenway Glow riders.
Inspired by John Cage’s aleatory experiments in musical, written, and visual composition, MCBA hosts a night of printmaking, sound installation, and performance.
An exhibit & salon by Margaret Pezalla exploring the potential of modeling speculative landscapes: places beyond what we can see: the extramundane.
Real-time video connects festival-goers in Minneapolis to neighbors in St Paul as they dine together through our commensal portal.
Seven Minnesota artists will each sculpt a three-dimensional wooden object, which will be exhibited in the Cargill Lounge of the Walker Art Center and then liberated by sacrificial burning.
Pick up a FLO(we){u}R seed-shaker bomb and visit this performative installation that turns The Soap Factory into a WWI dummy bomb factory.
Yarn-bomb your bike (or yourself) until you glow, or make your own luminary! Enjoy a Swedish-style hot dog and luminous live music by the Eclectic Ensemble, and off you go . . .
GLOWaBOUT combines the spirit of nostalgic neighborhood games and the Indian Holi Festival to create a wild event that glows, sparkles and excites!!
Bikers will visit Northern Spark projects along the Midtown Greenway with GoPro video cameras. Live video feeds will be projected on the Midtown Bike Center and nearby walls.
See Hedge Magic and experience Jess Hirsch’s tent revival with tarot readings, exorcisms, and sound, and help David Hamlow build a room-sized cardboard structure.
The ICE-Cycles Collective started at the Art Shanty Projects in 2012. These cyclists will roam the Greenway and other Northern Spark events promoting the bike as the ultimate form of year-round transportation and personal expression.
Public social space is permanently changing. iLounge offers a social stage to create a temporary community for a minute, an hour or an evening. iLounge is instant, interim and interactive.
Featuring dance performance in an immersive electronic music and video environment, In Habit: Living Patterns explores the collectively learned habits we practice in our everyday lives.
An attraction unlike any other*. The Greatest examines the idea of the spectacle before the spectacle and the strangely compelling social role that anticipation plays in adding gas to the fire of wonder.
Follow the Jack Brass Band—a New Orleans–style brass band—as it performs in three locations on the Greenway. Meet at 9 pm near the Midtown Bike Center.
Join artist Margaret Pezalla-Granlund for a visual journey to the surface of Mars, guided by the photographs, drawings, and writings of Earl C. Slipher.
The Weisman Art Museum opens all its current exhibitions for the entire night. Take a flashlight tour with the Weisguides or visit your favorite masterpiece in the middle of the night. Free.
Join us for an electric spectacle of magnetic lightning bugs and hand-printed lanterns along a glowing Lake Street. Stick around for live music and wood-fired pizza!
Landscape of the Mind explores the relationships of landscape, imagination and experience in a variety of media.
A special free performance of the Brave New Workshop’s legendary late night improv. Hilarious unscripted comedy in swanky new downtown digs!
Letterpress artists printing wood-type posters—a new design each hour! Visitors can submit poster ideas & take a free limited-edition print.
HOTTEA (Eric Rieger) will create a beautifully elaborate yarn installation in Target Park with collaborators and recycled materials.
Light Fall: Pass under a bouncing stream of glowing Superballs, then take a seat at the bicycle conveyor belt to control the flow in this hypnotic installation.
Watch bikers participate in the Greenway Glow, a fundraiser for the Midtown Greenway Coalition. Bikers will compete to see who can get the most lights—and most creative lights—on their bikes. The ride will start soon after 9 pm.
Recycled T-shirts, a product of fast fashion, rain down on the viewer, highlighted by
LEDs and electroluminescence.
Target’s South Tower lights up with a new project by Jim Campbell, creator of last year’s spectacular Scattered Light installation.
Midnight Mario: Drop into the 8-bit world as you jump and your shadow breaks a coin brick. Leap the robotic jump rope and you become Mario’s stunt double.
20 performers will gather to tell an animated story through movement and visual transitions by manipulating an Apple iPad. Accompanied by an acoustic sound score.
See selections from the best of the MN-made shorts program at this year’s MSP International Film Festival at this late-night outdoor screening.
Mobile Experiential Cinema is a multi-location projected cinematic experience with live performance, explored while biking, through the lens of the mystery genre.
“Mom’s Cookies” is a video projection of modern home cooking that commemorates St. Anthony Falls as the birthplace of packaged foods.
Illuminated art bikes will gather for a parade and performance across Sabo Bridge.
Some strange and beautiful flora bloom only at night, including these giant, intricate cardboard flowers that make you wonder if you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.
Join the Weisguides for these interactive tours, and be prepared to engage all your senses. View art in a new way, with only a flashlight as your guide.
I will travel through the festival zones on foot with a lantern, finishing at the river. I will lie down on my raft to rest, and my friends will convey me safely down the river.
A micro-projection event on the walking bridge featuring tiny demons and other nocturnal beasts that plague your subconscious during the night hours.
The MIA’s Target Wing is open all night! Come over & stroll through our galleries or just hang out under the stars in Target Park.
Artist interventions and activities plus select galleries are open all night with special one-night-only installations of artworks from the collection.
NOT TO SCALE is a performative large-scale installation that will happen during the course of the night. We invite viewers to look up and marvel at our message to the night sky.
Observation Tape Deck: listen to a collage of recorded messages at the top of the historic Foshay Tower, then leave your own behind for others.
Patty Mitchell & Robert Lockheed work with community orgs & teen artists with contributions from across our cities. Bring your imagination!
View youth perspectives on what makes a Community of Peace as told through their own photographs, installed on utility boxes throughout Downtown East.
Address
Pick up a walking tour map at Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue
Minneapolis
Ai Minnesota instructor and digital artist, Tim Armato, and UX Designer and musician, Brian Rowe create a continuously evolving photo and sound stream.
PixelTron150 is a giant LED screen made of 150 oversized pixels, and hosts an original arcade game created for Northern Spark.
Artists and faculty Tetsuya Yamada and Clive Murphy present a mobile pizza-oven-calliope-projection unit.
This illuminated parade, with a 40-piece marching band, will transform the Stone Arch Bridge into a psychedelic art corridor with LEDs and black lights.
Visit with owls and other raptors outside the museum with trained educators.
Discover an endangered landscape that challenges conventional green roof design and be awed by a spectral tamarack forest projection.
Celebrating all that makes ice fishing a wonderful Minnesota pastime.
SHIFT explores how the intentions and actions of each individual contribute to a sustainable, ever evolving community.
Shin’m Piñata is an interactive audiovisual environment. Colorful candy forms your body shape, then explodes in response to your movement.
Come join MNKINO for short videos inspired by the word “trail.” MNKINO is a monthly excuse for anyone to make a film and to meet others who like doing the same.
Sit ’n’ Spin Shanty encourages groups to work together to make a giant pod spin from the inside out. Side effects include laughter and nausea.
Help us catalog this amazing diversity of flying, crawling and jumping life through the art of sketching.
Inspired by tall tales of ghostly creatures inhabiting the Stone Arch Bridge, Sleepers Awake transforms a crumbling arch into the lair of one of these luminescent beings.
Take an interactive tour of the latest Earth and space science discoveries! We begin at the Earth and travel 13.7 billion years back in time to the limit of what astronomers can detect, and will visit any astronomical object you would like to see along the way.
Spark in the Park: Make a zine under the glowing “think” sign, and partake in luminescent games under the “wonder” sign. The two collide in a dance party on the hour.
Spark3DS an exhibition of printed Sculpture, desk top digital 3D Printers & mini symposium on 3D print tech: Jun. 9th-Jul.30th
Contribute your artistic skills to sparkler conversations! As you spell out words with a sparkler, we photograph your words and document the conversations throughout the night.
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre presents Star Spectacle, with music, dance, and masks.
Ai Minnesota’s sidewalk & parking lot become the gallery for interactive digital artwork and animations by Ai students and faculty.
Swing Hall, Swing All: How do you like to go up in a swing? Up in the sky so dark? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing you can do at Northern Spark!
An invitation to participate in simple meditative Tai Chi movements to “greet the day.”
See you at the 8th annual Ten Second Film Festival with our hosts @MPLSTV.
Exhibit your creative power and see images taken with your iPhone projected stories high on the Pillsbury Silos during the festival.
Peek into a giant birdhouse and watch an artist at work. Barter for an original artwork at this unique trading post.
Take-Up Productions presents the silent classic The Black Pirate accompanied by a haunting soundtrack composed and performed by The Poor Nobodys and recorded during a live performance at the Trylon microcinema.
Shed your layers at a rare off-ice appearance by the Dance Shanty, where we collectively blur, pop and lock the boundaries between artists and observers.
Using the window of the Skyline Room as a screen, The Eye of the Walker watches over Minneapolis from dusk ’til dawn.
1000 festival-going cyclists are given blinking red safety lights that synchronize with each other like fireflies.
Get published on an old-fashioned letterpress at Northern Spark! Follow @shantyquarian for prompts & tag your tweets with #shantyQ.
Electricity’s essential beauty, mystery and significance will be reasserted by a spectacular large-scale kinetic spark sculpture and accompanying video installation.
A park pavilion transforms into the habitat for a school of squirmy critters—a place to dance and play with these imaginary nocturnal beings.
The Peloton uses audience-generated pedal power to run lights and moving set for a show. A changing soundscape gives the feeling of a group ride.
A series of shadow shows is performed inside a beautiful gypsy Vardoo. The performers play inside while viewers enjoy shiny shadow imaginary from the outside.
Watch out for the Two Wheel Tour, the cities smallest theatre trails behind Open Eye’s shiny tandem bicycle to present “A Parade of Oddities” which promises to light up the night with miniature spectacle.
Transform yourself in a surreal Victorian fashion attic. Thee @_SashayShantay is a fantastic den of treasure hunting and fashion exploration!
This says it all about the night of Northern Spark, and Robin says it bridge-size, to be seen and pondered from miles around.
TönöSauna is a mobile wood-burning sauna and new media platform with parametrically designed interiors where people can relax and learn.
Bring your bike to make your own Treadprint poster to take home or hang in our outdoor gallery.
tuning the sky is a pop-in, illuminated cyclorama. Immerse yourself in a halo of atmospheric color that fills the horizon around your head.
Using high resolution projectors, live multi layer playback technology and stage lighting, Michael will project massive images collected through the ice along with his visual thoughts.
Vine Arts Center opens its 2012 Spring Member Show and features the light work of Light the Underground on the Midtown Greenway.
Warm up the Greenway with a jazz concert, posters printed by bike, a 15-piece orchestra, and improvisational song, dance, and storytelling.
A convergence of art and design at the Water Works park site, including sculpture, a horticulture exhibit, and landscape lighting.
Join us to hear local stories of the strange and unexplained, as well as share your own. Be careful though, once you find out what’s in your neighborhood you may not want to return home until morning!
In this video, a computer dubbed “The Serendipity Machine” continuously shuffles 3,000 shots, 80 voice-overs, and 150 pieces of music, creating an ever-changing story. Artist’s Cinema is made possible by generous support from Elizabeth Redleaf.
The Wonder/Think Project offers a spontaneous glimpse into the lives of others by exploring what people worldwide are thinking about and wondering about right now.
Beijing Film Academy + UMN students invite you to a quest for cultural meanings + histories of Yellow River + Mississippi River.
Join us for group yoga and meditation while the sun sets, followed by a play inspired by poets Rumi and Hafiz.
Bring your bike to make your own Treadprint poster to take home or hang in our outdoor gallery.
Vine Arts Center opens its 2012 Spring Member Show and features the light work of Light the Underground on the Midtown Greenway.
Warm up the Greenway with a jazz concert, posters printed by bike, a 15-piece orchestra, and improvisational song, dance, and storytelling.
Join us for an electric spectacle of magnetic lightning bugs and hand-printed lanterns along a glowing Lake Street. Stick around for live music and wood-fired pizza!
Spark3DS an exhibition of printed Sculpture, desk top digital 3D Printers & mini symposium on 3D print tech: Jun. 9th-Jul.30th
Join Minnesota artists and patrons at one of this summer’s CSA pick-up sites.
The ICE-Cycles Collective started at the Art Shanty Projects in 2012. These cyclists will roam the Greenway and other Northern Spark events promoting the bike as the ultimate form of year-round transportation and personal expression.
Join us for group yoga and meditation while the sun sets, followed by a play inspired by poets Rumi and Hafiz.
Experience the healing power of the arts—nature-based “retreats” with videography and guided imagery, drumming, movement mandalas, and more!
TönöSauna is a mobile wood-burning sauna and new media platform with parametrically designed interiors where people can relax and learn.
Some strange and beautiful flora bloom only at night, including these giant, intricate cardboard flowers that make you wonder if you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.
Come celebrate nature as a majestic white oak is given the party it deserves. Rave aims to put the sparkle back in this king’s crown.
Target’s South Tower lights up with a new project by Jim Campbell, creator of last year’s spectacular Scattered Light installation.
A park pavilion transforms into the habitat for a school of squirmy critters—a place to dance and play with these imaginary nocturnal beings.
GLOWaBOUT combines the spirit of nostalgic neighborhood games and the Indian Holi Festival to create a wild event that glows, sparkles and excites!!
Watch bikers participate in the Greenway Glow, a fundraiser for the Midtown Greenway Coalition. Bikers will compete to see who can get the most lights—and most creative lights—on their bikes. The ride will start soon after 9 pm.
Artists and faculty Tetsuya Yamada and Clive Murphy present a mobile pizza-oven-calliope-projection unit.
Using high resolution projectors, live multi layer playback technology and stage lighting, Michael will project massive images collected through the ice along with his visual thoughts.
Peek into a giant birdhouse and watch an artist at work. Barter for an original artwork at this unique trading post.
I will travel through the festival zones on foot with a lantern, finishing at the river. I will lie down on my raft to rest, and my friends will convey me safely down the river.
The Wonder/Think Project offers a spontaneous glimpse into the lives of others by exploring what people worldwide are thinking about and wondering about right now.
An attraction unlike any other*. The Greatest examines the idea of the spectacle before the spectacle and the strangely compelling social role that anticipation plays in adding gas to the fire of wonder.
An exhibit & salon by Margaret Pezalla exploring the potential of modeling speculative landscapes: places beyond what we can see: the extramundane.
21% is an interactive sound installation that invites visitors to influence a sound collage in collaboration with the trees of Target Park.
“Mom’s Cookies” is a video projection of modern home cooking that commemorates St. Anthony Falls as the birthplace of packaged foods.
Transform yourself in a surreal Victorian fashion attic. Thee @_SashayShantay is a fantastic den of treasure hunting and fashion exploration!
Shed your layers at a rare off-ice appearance by the Dance Shanty, where we collectively blur, pop and lock the boundaries between artists and observers.
Celebrating all that makes ice fishing a wonderful Minnesota pastime.
A series of shadow shows is performed inside a beautiful gypsy Vardoo. The performers play inside while viewers enjoy shiny shadow imaginary from the outside.
Seven Minnesota artists will each sculpt a three-dimensional wooden object, which will be exhibited in the Cargill Lounge of the Walker Art Center and then liberated by sacrificial burning.
In this video, a computer dubbed “The Serendipity Machine” continuously shuffles 3,000 shots, 80 voice-overs, and 150 pieces of music, creating an ever-changing story. Artist’s Cinema is made possible by generous support from Elizabeth Redleaf.
Drawing Club invites local artists and the public to grab a pencil and add contributions to an evolving pool of pieces over the course of the night.
Recycled T-shirts, a product of fast fashion, rain down on the viewer, highlighted by
LEDs and electroluminescence.
Public social space is permanently changing. iLounge offers a social stage to create a temporary community for a minute, an hour or an evening. iLounge is instant, interim and interactive.
The Weisman Art Museum opens all its current exhibitions for the entire night. Take a flashlight tour with the Weisguides or visit your favorite masterpiece in the middle of the night. Free.
Illuminated art bikes will gather for a parade and performance across Sabo Bridge.
Yarn-bomb your bike (or yourself) until you glow, or make your own luminary! Enjoy a Swedish-style hot dog and luminous live music by the Eclectic Ensemble, and off you go . . .
Throw your body into this game of Pong: using your silhouette instead of paddles in this interactive projection, you experience the game like never before.
Join the Bell Museum of Natural History as we capture the night with sound, light, and art; learn stories of the stars; and call in the creatures of the night.
Join the Bell Museum of Natural History as we capture the night using sound, light and art; learning stories of the stars and calling in the creatures of the night.
Help us catalog this amazing diversity of flying, crawling and jumping life through the art of sketching.
Take an interactive tour of the latest Earth and space science discoveries! We begin at the Earth and travel 13.7 billion years back in time to the limit of what astronomers can detect, and will visit any astronomical object you would like to see along the way.
Letterpress artists printing wood-type posters—a new design each hour! Visitors can submit poster ideas & take a free limited-edition print.
Inspired by John Cage’s aleatory experiments in musical, written, and visual composition, MCBA hosts a night of printmaking, sound installation, and performance.
Exhibit your creative power and see images taken with your iPhone projected stories high on the Pillsbury Silos during the festival.
Spark in the Park: Make a zine under the glowing “think” sign, and partake in luminescent games under the “wonder” sign. The two collide in a dance party on the hour.
Ten youth from the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center investigate and address how elements such as wind and solar power affect the environment.
PixelTron150 is a giant LED screen made of 150 oversized pixels, and hosts an original arcade game created for Northern Spark.
Artist interventions and activities plus select galleries are open all night with special one-night-only installations of artworks from the collection.
Door to the River: Enjoy a live sound/video performance that evolves and builds throughout the night. Cycling waves and rhythms overtake each other in this improvisational piece.
Learn how a dozen artists, designers, and entrepreneurs, all MCAD alumni, have transformed the cultural landscape in Minnesota and beyond.
Swing Hall, Swing All: How do you like to go up in a swing? Up in the sky so dark? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing you can do at Northern Spark!
Local musicians gather for a series of intimate concerts around a campfire at Open Field. From 2–3 am, local writers, comedians, and storytellers join in to exchange tales under the moonlight.
Patty Mitchell & Robert Lockheed work with community orgs & teen artists with contributions from across our cities. Bring your imagination!
Discover an endangered landscape that challenges conventional green roof design and be awed by a spectral tamarack forest projection.
Midnight Mario: Drop into the 8-bit world as you jump and your shadow breaks a coin brick. Leap the robotic jump rope and you become Mario’s stunt double.
Paper Darts and the Loft invite you to forget for one playful night what makes dreams unreal.
Light Fall: Pass under a bouncing stream of glowing Superballs, then take a seat at the bicycle conveyor belt to control the flow in this hypnotic installation.
Capitol HILL: an absurd and engaging take on government with twin transparent domes, mustaches, spontaneous departments, and Mad-Lib speeches.
A realtime portrait of the night, Bump reveals nocturnal narratives shaped by people’s stories and the changing environment of the city.
See Hedge Magic and experience Jess Hirsch’s tent revival with tarot readings, exorcisms, and sound, and help David Hamlow build a room-sized cardboard structure.
Ai Minnesota’s sidewalk & parking lot become the gallery for interactive digital artwork and animations by Ai students and faculty.
Sit ’n’ Spin Shanty encourages groups to work together to make a giant pod spin from the inside out. Side effects include laughter and nausea.
Landscape of the Mind explores the relationships of landscape, imagination and experience in a variety of media.
Follow the Jack Brass Band—a New Orleans–style brass band—as it performs in three locations on the Greenway. Meet at 9 pm near the Midtown Bike Center.
Use a bat detector to hear the ultrasonic sounds a bat makes converted into a symphony of clicks and whirrs audible to human ears.
An interactive shadow show of miniature proportions on the walking bridge. Six tiny automatons inspired by creatures that thrive at night.
HOTTEA (Eric Rieger) will create a beautifully elaborate yarn installation in Target Park with collaborators and recycled materials.
This says it all about the night of Northern Spark, and Robin says it bridge-size, to be seen and pondered from miles around.
Live painting, projections, sculptures, and sound animate this gallery debut and grand opening show.
The MIA’s Target Wing is open all night! Come over & stroll through our galleries or just hang out under the stars in Target Park.
View youth perspectives on what makes a Community of Peace as told through their own photographs, installed on utility boxes throughout Downtown East.
Address
Pick up a walking tour map at Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue
Minneapolis
Experience the Mississippi River from the perspective of the Dakota, with sounds of nature interwoven with Dakota voices, accompanied by video projections.
The very best acoustic, spoken word, and avant-garde street performances in the Romanesque-revival remains of the Metropolitan Theatre.
Ai Minnesota instructor and digital artist, Tim Armato, and UX Designer and musician, Brian Rowe create a continuously evolving photo and sound stream.
Pick up a FLO(we){u}R seed-shaker bomb and visit this performative installation that turns The Soap Factory into a WWI dummy bomb factory.
Shin’m Piñata is an interactive audiovisual environment. Colorful candy forms your body shape, then explodes in response to your movement.
Inspired by tall tales of ghostly creatures inhabiting the Stone Arch Bridge, Sleepers Awake transforms a crumbling arch into the lair of one of these luminescent beings.
Four Seasons Dance Studio jumpstarts the evening with swing dance demos at 9pm. A mix of styles to follow! Tap your toes and join us.
tuning the sky is a pop-in, illuminated cyclorama. Immerse yourself in a halo of atmospheric color that fills the horizon around your head.
Electricity’s essential beauty, mystery and significance will be reasserted by a spectacular large-scale kinetic spark sculpture and accompanying video installation.
See selections from the best of the MN-made shorts program at this year’s MSP International Film Festival at this late-night outdoor screening.
NOT TO SCALE is a performative large-scale installation that will happen during the course of the night. We invite viewers to look up and marvel at our message to the night sky.
Real-time video connects festival-goers in Minneapolis to neighbors in St Paul as they dine together through our commensal portal.
The Peloton uses audience-generated pedal power to run lights and moving set for a show. A changing soundscape gives the feeling of a group ride.
1000 festival-going cyclists are given blinking red safety lights that synchronize with each other like fireflies.
A convergence of art and design at the Water Works park site, including sculpture, a horticulture exhibit, and landscape lighting.
Featuring dance performance in an immersive electronic music and video environment, In Habit: Living Patterns explores the collectively learned habits we practice in our everyday lives.
Observation Tape Deck: listen to a collage of recorded messages at the top of the historic Foshay Tower, then leave your own behind for others.
Beijing Film Academy + UMN students invite you to a quest for cultural meanings + histories of Yellow River + Mississippi River.
Get published on an old-fashioned letterpress at Northern Spark! Follow @shantyquarian for prompts & tag your tweets with #shantyQ.
Car Dreams explores the car as an intermediary between realms: parked on a street, its windows show videos of landscapes and lives affected by our dependence on oil.
Start off the night with food and drink by Bryant Lake Bowl and music in our gallery. Check out our current exhibit Unlanded Margins and party with Greenway Glow riders.
Using the window of the Skyline Room as a screen, The Eye of the Walker watches over Minneapolis from dusk ’til dawn.
This illuminated parade, with a 40-piece marching band, will transform the Stone Arch Bridge into a psychedelic art corridor with LEDs and black lights.
Bikers will visit Northern Spark projects along the Midtown Greenway with GoPro video cameras. Live video feeds will be projected on the Midtown Bike Center and nearby walls.
Take-Up Productions presents the silent classic The Black Pirate accompanied by a haunting soundtrack composed and performed by The Poor Nobodys and recorded during a live performance at the Trylon microcinema.
Contribute your artistic skills to sparkler conversations! As you spell out words with a sparkler, we photograph your words and document the conversations throughout the night.
Stop and reflect at a whimsical, inspiring roadside shrine to imaginary animal saints that embody different aspects of cycling.
See lighted bike projections on the walls of the Midtown Bike Center. Presented by Freewheel Bike.
Dakota science educator Jim Rock will take us on a comprehensive journey of the night sky as the indigenous people of Minnesota see and understand it.
Visit with owls and other raptors outside the museum with trained educators.
See you at the 8th annual Ten Second Film Festival with our hosts @MPLSTV.
Mobile Experiential Cinema is a multi-location projected cinematic experience with live performance, explored while biking, through the lens of the mystery genre.
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre presents Star Spectacle, with music, dance, and masks.
Watch out for the Two Wheel Tour, the cities smallest theatre trails behind Open Eye’s shiny tandem bicycle to present “A Parade of Oddities” which promises to light up the night with miniature spectacle.
MacPhail gives life-changing music learning experiences to people of all ages and backgrounds, connecting with our community through music instruction and performances.
SHIFT explores how the intentions and actions of each individual contribute to a sustainable, ever evolving community.
Come join MNKINO for short videos inspired by the word “trail.” MNKINO is a monthly excuse for anyone to make a film and to meet others who like doing the same.
A special free performance of the Brave New Workshop’s legendary late night improv. Hilarious unscripted comedy in swanky new downtown digs!
Join artist Margaret Pezalla-Granlund for a visual journey to the surface of Mars, guided by the photographs, drawings, and writings of Earl C. Slipher.
Visit with owls and other raptors outside the museum with trained educators.
Join the Weisguides for these interactive tours, and be prepared to engage all your senses. View art in a new way, with only a flashlight as your guide.
A micro-projection event on the walking bridge featuring tiny demons and other nocturnal beasts that plague your subconscious during the night hours.
Join us to hear local stories of the strange and unexplained, as well as share your own. Be careful though, once you find out what’s in your neighborhood you may not want to return home until morning!
20 performers will gather to tell an animated story through movement and visual transitions by manipulating an Apple iPad. Accompanied by an acoustic sound score.
Gear up for the morning hours with caffeinated beverages and high-energy unplugged live music from Sleeping in the Aviary and Buffalo Moon.
An invitation to participate in simple meditative Tai Chi movements to “greet the day.”
