Northern Lights.mn

We began this process having built an annual event that engages tens of thousands of Minnesotans in art in public space. We have always described Northern Spark as a platform -- a container that artists and partners can use to bring forward their ideas and missions. This is still true, but applying the climate theme to the festival along with the intense process of community work have left us with an altered understanding of what it means to be a platform. How we can be more open and allow more decision making to come from our partners and collaborators? This was not the innovation we started out towards, but it is an important one in building a process of engagement for an event that has the potential to be more community-centric and to more powerfully address contemporary issues of importance. We feel both closer and farther away from this goal. On one hand, even after a year of meeting and building, we are just at the beginning of these community-based partnerships. Many years of continued engagement are necessary to be more powerful together. We have had our eyes opened by this process and now understand our work in a really different way. Humbling as it is, it a big start.