Turning Northrop Inside-Out

This past winter, Northrop was selected to be one of four participants in EmcArts' Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts.The Innovation Lab is an intensive training and immersion program that supports arts organizations to develop and prototype new innovations in order to adapt to new ways of operating. As a 12-month program, the Innovation Lab offers individual coaching and group facilitation followed by an intensive retreat designed to give arts organizations the time and space needed to plan, engage, participate, and learn how to create a new solution to an adaptive challenge.

Our project asks: How can we transform our revitalized facility into a hub of interdisciplinary creativity and innovation at the University of Minnesota that dynamically engages students, faculty, researchers, artists, and the greater community?

For this blog post, ArtsFwd asked us: What is the biggest question you and your team are wrestling with as you head into the intensive retreat (which is where our team is now)? You can find the original posting of this blog on the ArtsFwd website here. Read more from the other Lab participants here.

What is the biggest question our team is wrestling with as we head into the intensive retreat?

Heading into the retreat, the general atmosphere surrounding the Northrop Innovation Lab team is that of eagerness and excitement. After three months of incredibly productive and creative brainstorming where we wrapped our arms around many enormous ideas, we have finally distilled our good thinking to the point where we are ready to dig into the nitty-gritty details of creating a realistic framework for our prototype.

The biggest question that has surfaced in recent conversations, which will be at the center of our retreat planning, is how we begin to test a new model of collaborative, interdisciplinary programming before our facility reopens. The Innovation Lab period ends three months prior to Northrop’s grand reopening in April 2014. This constraint—which, for some, could be debilitating—has actually fueled amazingly inventive thinking that reimagines how we might utilize the outdoor spaces surrounding Northrop in the months leading up to the reopening.

A theme that is starting to act as a connecting thread is the idea of turning “Northrop Inside-Out,” bringing the new Northrop to life by animating every side of the building’s outside-facing walls with the kinds of programming that we will eventually take inside. Simultaneously, these efforts will signal to the community that “Northrop Is Open.”

Ultimately, as we crack open the possibility that exists when we move beyond our walls, there is an overabundance of potential solutions to this big question. We’re excited to further filter and focus these possibilities at the retreat to inform our final prototype.