FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Creative City Challenge winning project launches at Northern Spark

Balancing Ground Debuting June 14, 8:30 p.m. at the Minneapolis Convention Center Plaza

MINNEAPOLIS, June 6, 2014 The Minneapolis Convention Center (MCC), The Arts, Culture and Creative Economy Program of the City of Minneapolis and Meet Minneapolis, Convention & Visitors Association, in collaboration with Northern Lights.mn and the Northern Spark festival will debut the winner of the 2014 Creative City Challenge, Balancing Ground, at the MCC Plaza on June 14 at 8:30 p.m. as part of Northern Spark, an annual dusk-to-dawn festival. Unlike most of the projects at the festival, Balancing Ground will continue to be featured on the plaza throughout the summer and host three additional, themed events for the public. Mayor Betsy Hodges will introduce this winning project to the public as part of the opening ceremonies for Northern Spark along with Mark Wheat from 89.3 The Current and music by GRRRL PRTY.

Balancing Ground by Amanda Lovelee, Christopher Field, Kyle Waites and Sarah West is a welcoming interactive space that can be activated by one or 100 people. It is continually transforming, with complex shadows patterns and colors woven throughout the space from an overhead canopy of prisms. Balancing Ground presents a space for playful participation and quiet, reflective moments. It is a space without wallsopen to allbuilt on a foundation of community voices. If you are willing to listen, Balancing Ground will literally speak to you.

The installation will consist of long rows of wood benches interrupted with a series of playground teeter-totters which will be surrounded by a large wood structure with a canopy of prisms and reflective fragments strung between rafters. Further details and a video about the project can be viewed at http://www.minneapolis.org/minneapolis-convention-center/ccc/finalist/balancing-ground.

We are excited that our project is debuting next week as part of Northern Spark, said Lovelee. As a team of four artists from four different creative backgrounds, we approached this project with varied perspectives and ambitions, and this interdisciplinary collaboration has pushed us to combine uncommon elements. We think the merging of interaction of activity serious and silly, serene and active, sacred and playful will make this project an engaging, inviting experience for visitors to the MCC plaza.

Northern Spark details

Northern Spark this year will have 250+ artists (including Christian Marclay, Jefferson Pinder, Ragamala Dance, Luke Savisky, HOTTEA and many others) that hail from Minnesota and far beyond and work in the varied disciplines of video, film, performance, digital media, installation, theater, sculpture, music and interactivity.

Media members are invited to reserve a PRESS PASS in advance for best viewing of Balancing Ground and other Northern Spark art projects throughout the evening. The press pass allows you convenient access to any Northern Spark 2014 art project. Simply present it to the artist, staff person or volunteer managing the line. They will do their best to find a convenient way to help you gain access at the next available opportunity.

Press check-in/PASS PICK UP:

Saturday, June 14 from 7 - 9:30 p.m. (Opening Ceremony begins at 8:30 p.m. Northern Spark officially begins at 9:01 p.m.)

Minneapolis Convention Center, front entrance (outside building) 1301 Second Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55403

See the full news release about Northern Spark here:

See the full line-up for 2014 projects, artists and partners with locations and descriptions here:

Summer events at MCC Plaza featuring Balancing Ground

The MCC Plaza and featured project Balancing Ground will host a series of summer events meant to bring residents and visitors out to interact and explore.

· Northern Spark Saturday, June 14:
Balancing Ground will be unveiled and featured at the Northern Spark festival on June 14 at 8:30 p.m. during the opening ceremonies on the MCC Plaza. Northern Spark is the premier dusk-to-dawn public arts festival in Minnesota, expected to draw a crowd of 50,000 passionate attendees. The opening ceremonies will include an address by Betsy Hodges, mayor of Minneapolis, and featured performances.

· Play Day Saturday, July 19:
This day is all about empowering the community to be active both mentally and physically. Attendees start the day with hundreds of others by doing yoga on the open plaza. Throughout the day there will be other mind/body programs like meditation, electronic hopscotch, speed chess, scrabble and more. The day will end with a stage of performances from competitive rap to write fights to dueling banjos.

· Discovery Day Saturday, Aug. 16:
The Minneapolis Convention Center Plaza is a space for participation and social interactions. It is also a portal for discovery of other cultural, natural and retail wonders of the city. This Discovery Day will feature a city-wide mystery game which anyone can solve by discovering hidden treasures in the city. In addition, booths and projects from local schools and organizations will explore everything from big data to hands on environmental science activities.

· Maker Day Saturday, Sept. 13:
The Do It Yourself (DIY) community in Minneapolis Saint Paul is a strong part of a national and international movement to making things from yarn bombing to robots. Our Maker Day will invite Twin Cities makers such as the Hack Factorys Trebuchet and Wil Natzels cardboard wizardry (as featured on TPTs mnoriginals) to come out and interact with the community, sharing their exciting and original ways of thinking. The Maker Day will include innovative and creative home brew projects from the technologically sophisticated to traditional crafts to food and beverages.

More information about the events is at http://www.minneapolis.org/min....

Background information on the Creative City Challenge

The Creative City Challenge (CCC) is a competition for Minnesota-resident architects, landscape architects, urban designers, planners, engineers, scientists, artists, students and individuals of all backgrounds to create and install at the MCC Plaza a temporary, destination artwork. The artwork acts as a sociable and participatory platform for summer-long onsite programming, and encourages a sense of connectedness to the city as a whole and its rich cultural and natural offerings. The MCC Plaza is a green roof that is located directly across from the MCC at 1301 Second Avenue South.

The CCCs goal is to draw visitors and residents of the city to the Minneapolis Convention Center as a central meeting space for the surrounding area, as well as to provide a compelling gathering site for the MCCs thousands of visitors. The commission fee for the selected project is $75,000, inclusive of all artist fees, installation and de-installation costs. The winning project will remain on the MCC Plaza throughout the summer and be the site of several public events to be announced at a later date. The MCC is a site of convergence for visitors to Minneapolis from around the country and the world, as well as being a part of the local neighborhood, and Minneapolis downtown.

In its inaugural year, the Creative City Challenge selected the Minneapolis Interactive Macro Mood Installation (MIMMI) as the winner, which was installed on the MCC Plaza from June through October 2013. The 2014 Creative City Challenge is an expansion and refinement of the 2013 program. Further information about the competition, finalists projects and last years winning project, MIMMI, can be found here: http://www.minneapolis.org/min....

PHOTO ATTACHED - CUTLINE

Balancing Ground rendering, courtesy of Amanda Lovelee, Christopher Field, Kyle Waites and Sara West.

ABOUT MINNEAPOLIS CONVENTION CENTER

The Minneapolis Convention Center (MCC) is the largest indoor, contiguous, convention center in the Upper Midwest with over 1.5 million visitors annually, including 250,000 during the summer months. The MCC is more than a meeting place. It's more than a show space. It's a building all about building something elserelationships. A blend of form and function, the MCC provides aesthetically pleasing and innovative solutions for a variety of conferences, trade shows and events. With nearly 480,000 square feet of trade show space, 87 column-free conference meeting rooms, a 28,000-square-foot ballroom, and an auditorium with superb production and flexible technology options, the facility can handle any event from a small meeting to a large convention or trade show.

ABOUT THE ARTS, CULTURE AND CREATIVE ECONOMY PROGRAM, CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS

The Arts, Culture and Creative Economy program is an initiative of the City Coordinator's office established August 2011 to leverage the creative sector towards strengthening social and economic growth in the City of Minneapolis. The goals of the program are to: promote and coordinate City resources to develop the arts as an economic generator in alignment the City Goal "art and artists are economic drivers in and of themselves, to stimulate cross-sector collaboration to strengthen the arts economy and community in Minneapolis and provide presence and visibility for the creative sector in the City of Minneapolis.

ABOUT NORTHERN SPARK

Northern Spark is produced by Northern Lights.mn, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to artists working innovatively in the public sphere, exploring expanded possibilities for civic engagement and encourage pluralistic community. This years festival begins at 9:01 p.m. on June 14 in Minneapolis. http://northernspark.org

ABOUT MEET MINNEAPOLIS

Meet Minneapolis is a private, not-for-profit, member-based association. It actively promotes and sells the Minneapolis area as a destination for conventions and meetings, works to maximize the visitor experience and markets the city as a desirable tourist destination to maximize the economic benefit of the greater Minneapolis area.

Meet Minneapolis is accredited by the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (DMAP) of the Destination Marketing Association International.

Find out more:

Online: http://go.minneapolis.org

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/meetmi...

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/meetminneap...

On Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/meetminne...

MEDIA CONTACTS

· Kristen Montag, Meet Minneapolis media communication manager, 612.767.8038 (office) or 651-335-5754 (cell), kristenm@minneapolis.org, Minneapolis_PR on Twitter.

· Alyson Sinclair, Northern Spark publicity and marketing director, 612.201.3867 (cell), aly@alysonsinclairpr.com

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