Northern Lights recognizes that equity work is long and continuous, and that progress doesn’t happen without intentionality. Northern Lights.mn recognizes that equity work is long and continuous, and that progress doesn’t happen without intention. The Artist Council (formerly known as the Program Council) is a group of rotating artists and organizers from various disciplines. The Council works with Northern Lights staff to strategize, jury, and curate the festival and engage communities at Northern Spark each year.
The values and processes of the Artist Council are articulated in a document self-authored with Northern Lights staff in 2020, during a planned hiatus of the festival. Download a copy of Relationships & Reciprocity: A Guide to Making Northern Spark here.
The 2022 Council convened in a year defined by an ongoing global pandemic, ongoing racism and disenfranchisement of many communities of color, and overall reduced arts funding related to the economic fallout of COVID-19.
Deepest thank you to the 2022 Council:
Dameun Strange, Courtney Cochran, Hawona Sullivan Janzen, Heather C. Lou, May Lee-Yang and Ricardo Beaird with Artist Council Manager Valerie Oliveiro. For more information about Council members, visit the Artist Council page on the Northern Lights.mn site.