‘Wolf & Moose,’ 2016 Creative City Challenge winning project, launches at Northern Spark June 11

Annual public art project debuts on Minneapolis Convention Center Plaza for summer, available through early October

MINNEAPOLIS (June 8, 2016) – The 2016 Creative City Challenge winner, “Wolf and Moose” by Christopher Lutter, Heid E. Erdrich, Kim Ford, Karl Stoerzinger, Coal Dorius and Missy Adzick, will launch officially at the opening ceremony of Northern Spark at dusk on June 11, 2016, on the Convention Center Plaza. The project will be available for public viewing and participation through early October.

The Minneapolis Convention Center (MCC), the Arts, Culture and the 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 oversee the Creative City Challenge, which is in its fourth year. “Wolf & Moose” was chosen by a jury from among three finalists, and the winning team received a $75,000 commission.

“Wolf and Moose” consists of spectacle-scale animal sculptures of a wolf and moose that are interactive, animated and illuminated, and are constructed using found and recycled materials. Visitors will be able to interact with the sculptures by pedaling and pulling ropes that will turn the heads, cause the Moose to gesture and make the Wolf howl. The sculptures include stationary bicycles which, when pedaled, provide animations inside the bodies of the animals: breathing, heart beating and an illuminated globe of the Earth rotating with beautiful lighting effects at night. The pedaling also powers a small onboard speaker that plays recorded works of poetry and story reflecting on our relationship with the animals and the Earth.

This project is driven by a distinctive spiritual ecology. With the advent of the “Global Warming Age,” the artists wish to demonstrate that Minneapolis is at the forefront of initiatives to live more sustainably (and sanely) on this Earth. But even more, they wish to highlight that we have a widely shared culture of deep ecology, which is essential to bringing about genuine and enduring systemic change.

“Wolf and Moose” inspires awe, generates playfulness and sparks reflections on our place as humans in the natural and social order and celebrates the many facets of our progressive and innovative community.

Northern Spark Opening Events around ‘Wolf & Moose’ on June 11

From 6 – 8:30 p.m., the Minneapolis Convention Center Plaza will be the site of family-friendly pre-festival events and projects leading up to the Opening Ceremony and free concert by Helado Negro in collaboration with the Minneapolis Music Company. Free activities include: Make-N-Take Moose Antler Workshop by Gustavo Boada, Brass Messengers present Music in the Plaza, Heid E. Erdich’s Make a Moose Caller Workshop and Jamie McDonald’s Community Bike Rally.

Heid E Erdich will do a poetry reading at 8:30 p.m. and Nancy Gibson will conduct a Wolf Howling Tutorial at 8:40 p.m. then Mayor Betsy Hodges will help open the 2016 Northern Spark festival at 9 p.m. with a free performance of music, dance and Helado Negro’s Tinsel Mammals next to the unveiled “Wolf & Moose.” Visitors are encouraged to use hashtag #wolfnmoose that night on social media.

Creative City Challenge background information

The Creative City Challenge 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 Minneapolis Convention Center (MCC) Plaza a temporary, destination artwork, which 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 Plaza is a green roof that is located directly across from the MCC at 1301 Second Avenue South.

In its inaugural year, the Creative City Challenge selected the Minneapolis Interactive Macro Mood Installation (MIMMI) as the winner; and in 2014, Balancing Ground. 2015’s winning project was mini_polis. Wolf & Moose information is here: http://www.minneapolis.org/minneapolis-convention-center/on-the-plaza/winning-project/.

The project 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 MCC’s thousands of visitors. The commission fee for the winning 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. 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.

More information about Creative ity Challenge, past projects and the new winning project is available at http://www.minneapolis.org/minneapolis-convention-center/ccc.

2016 Creative City Challenge winner, “Wolf and Moose,” logo provided by Christopher Lutter.

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 else…relationships. 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 THE CREATIVE ECONOMY PROGRAM, CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS

The City of Minneapolis’ Arts, Culture and Creative Economy program leverages the creative sector toward social and economic growth in the city of Minneapolis. The program works with the Minneapolis Arts Commission, coordinates arts and creative economy programs and activities, promotes local arts and culture, develops policy frameworks for 21st century arts economies and collaborates on arts-based community development initiatives.

ABOUT NORTHERN SPARK

Northern Spark is a free, annual, dusk-to-dawn, multidisciplinary arts festival that takes place on the second Saturday of June and draws tens of thousands of Minnesotans each year. For the 2016 and 2017 festivals, the theme Climate Chaos | Climate Rising will explore the interconnected, evolving, long-term consequences from climate change, giving local and national artists’ a platform to help turn a sense of overwhelmment into concrete actions anchored in a realistic and hopeful map for the future.

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.

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MEDIA CONTACT

Kristen Montag, communication and public relations manager, 612.767.8038, kristenm@minneapolis.org, @Minneapolis_PR on Twitter.