What to Expect at Northern Spark 2018

Two nights are better than one at the 2018 edition of downtown Minneapolis’ free art festival.

by

It wouldn’t be an art festival without experimentation, right? Having spent past years thrilling Twin Cities art-lovers and insomniacs with an all-night public art bonanza, Northern Spark 2018 is switching it up. This year, the fest takes place over two nights—June 15–16, 9:02 p.m.–2 a.m.—across three public Minneapolis spaces: Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis Central Library, and the Commons Park. To quote festival co-director Sarah Peters: “we’re becoming a late night festival.” Quite the change from last year’s eight-hour trek along the Green Line.

Of course, in keeping with the opaque nature of “art,” while things change, things also stay the same. Like past years, the artists participating in Northern Spark 2018 have been tasked with orienting their work towards a common theme. Last year, the theme was Climate Chaos/People Rising. This year, the theme is Commonality.

“Commonality” sounds like an idea that could stray into cliché territory. But at a Northern Spark preview event on May 23rd at the Holden Room, artists and organizers presented a comprehensive look at the festival, outlining a compelling take on a concept that—especially since the 2016 election—has often been used to gloss over individual and systemic differences in our country. As artistic director Steve Dietz says: “it isn’t about ‘we all eat, we all shit.’” It’s also not the platitudinous lowest common denominator commonality often invoked in sports—the “we can forget our differences and just love baseball for five hours” sentiment. Instead, it’s about approaching the idea of commonality in a way that honors the differences intrinsic to our shared American/Minnesotan experience. That’s why, Dietz tells me, the theme is commonality, and not the posed question “what do we have in common?” It’s about sharing in a common goal and process, not desperately trying to find one thing we all have identical feelings about. If it sounds abstract or hard to define, that's because it is. “I don’t really know what [it] means,” Dietz happily admits. But if we knew what it meant, there wouldn’t be any reason for an art festival.

The best strategy for understanding the commonality of Northern Spark 2018 is really to just let the art talk. Along with a very detailed PowerPoint overview of all the projects scheduled for the festival, last Wednesday’s Northern Spark preview offered an early look at some of the upcoming projects. Here are three of them.

One of the most ambitious (and straight up big) projects previewed at the Holden Room, the Carry On Homes interactive installation is a combination photo gallery, performance space, gathering area, and mural (scale model pictured above). The not-yet-complete “home” was conceptualized by five artists from five different countries (Peng Wu, Shun Jie Yong, Aki Shibata, Preston Drum, and Zoe Cinel). It won the 2018 Creative City challenge, which means it will remain erected at the Commons after debuting at Northern Spark.

Featuring repurposed suitcases, approximately 2x2 foot photos, and the connotative structure of a home—complete with a garden area and picnic table—the Carry On Homes project is devoted to telling the stories of Minnesota immigrants. The walls, approximately 12 feet tall, are covered in painted suitcases, presenting a kaleidoscopic display of the simple devices used to transport a life from one country to another. The photos are portraits of immigrants holding one item they brought to America when they first emigrated. The stage, which will host performances, community events, and more, can hold up to 100 people.

The Carry On Homes project presents some of the clearest examples of commonality and difference in the festival. Commonality, in the idea of a common home, and the shared immigration journey. Difference in each story, in the countries from which people came, and the individual experience of making a new home in Minnesota. And, of course, commonality in its artistic nature: bringing a variety of people to the Commons to “celebrate the immigrant cultures from around the world that have come to call Minnesota home.”

The Section of Disapproved Books—to be displayed, unsurprisingly, in the Minneapolis Central Library—features books like Laptops for Seniors for Dummies, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Contemporary Art Book. The common denominator? None of those books can be read by inmates in the Minnesota penitentiary system.

The Section of Disapproved Books can’t even come close to displaying all the titles banned in American prisons; in Arizona alone, there are nearly 600 taboo books. But it can reveal the enormous diversity of disallowed titles. The ambiguous phrase “security risk” means prisoners can’t read about laptops, political theory, or social activism. Anything with erotic content is banned—say goodbye to Twilight, 50 Shades, and probably every Gabriel García Márquez novel ever. You get the idea.

Daniel McCarthy Clifford, the artist behind the Section of Disapproved Books, tells me that prisons are required to provide a reason for banning each book. But, he says, the criteria are often arbitrary, and the prisoners can’t really challenge the veracity of a ban. If the prison determines that The Contemporary Art Book is erotic, than it’s erotic. If Laptops for Seniors is a labeled a security risk, it’s a security risk. So, the exhibition asks: What are we taking away from the people in our so-called “correctional” facilities? In what ways are we cutting them off from American society? And why? By merely collecting banned books, the Section of Disapproved Books promises two thought-provoking nights at the library.

Sami Pfeffer’s The Archive of Apologies and Pardons is just that: an interactive archive of custom-created apology and pardon forms, to be completed and submitted to Pfeffer’s roving cart on Nicollet during Northern Spark. Participants will have the chance to fill out template apologies and pardons; upon completion, Pfeffer will file each form in a binder—categorized by “types,” like racism, for example—and store the binder in the mobile archive.

In addition to filling out your own apology or pardon, the Archive offers the chance to browse other forms (don’t worry, it’s anonymous). The apologies can range from the trivial to the serious, as can the pardons, and you don’t have to explain anything to anybody, except the nonjudgmental apology/pardon sheet. Described on Northern Spark’s website as a “collective body of remorse,” the Archive aims to provide a rehearsal experience of guilt and forgiveness, and contribute to our overall ability to heal from the experiences we’ve all suffered and inflicted.

Of course, those three projects only scratch the surface of the body of work—dance, poetry, music, theater, light installation, film, photography, and so much more—that will fill downtown Minneapolis on the weekend of June 15th. There’s The Empathy Economy, an installation that replaces ATMs with empathy withdrawal and deposit stations. TRUTH: Trans Youth Zine Workshop provides participants with zine-making materials and hands-on advice, with an emphasis on trans youth representation and inclusivity. In A Buffalo Nation: Creating Community, Keith Braveheart and the Native American Community Development Institute present an interactive screen-printing/paper-assembly project: Participants will create hundreds of buffalo figures that will be added to a growing sculpture, signifying different aspects of environmental and cultural threat, harm, healing, and protection. The list goes on and on: you can find a full directory at Northern Spark’s website.

Focusing on the art itself, it’s slightly easier to understand Northern Spark’s difference-oriented understanding of commonality; it emerges in different ways in each project. But commonality is by far the most evident in the fact that every work—no matter its focus, its story, its form, or its creator—will be on display in some of the most public places in the Twin Cities, for people from all over to see. That’s something we can get behind. See you at Northern Spark 2018!

For more details about schedules, sponsors, and special events, visit NorthernSpark.org

Mpls.St.Paul Daily Edit

Sign up for our daily newsletter.