Wintec’s Spark International Festival of Music, Media, Arts and Design will ignite creative minds next week as it celebrates a milestone 20 years.
Held at Wintec’s Hamilton city campus on August 6-9, the festival promises a dynamic experience of creative visionaries from New Zealand and around the globe.
The four-day festival has become an established part of the vibrant creative community in the mighty Waikato, and while it was created to inspire Wintec students and alumni, Spark is for everyone.
With free admission, it provides an opportunity for anyone wanting to attend the festival full of speakers who bring their global experience to the region, from across the many creative disciplines.
This year’s Spark festival line-up includes 22 speakers from around the world, including the USA, Canada, Australia and throughout New Zealand. In previous years, they’ve had speakers from Spain, United Kingdom, USA, Japan, China, Brazil and Chile and more.
Spark grew out of a student-led exhibition in the mid-1990s and was initiated in 1998 by Wintec Media Arts staff who pooled their resources to enable small in-class interactions with speakers from industry.
Fast forward to today and the festival now attracts international and national guests to present across the creative disciplines and every year more Wintec alumni return for the celebration of inspired creativity.
“We’re celebrating 20 years of this iconic festival, which continues to provide an innovative place for cross-disciplinary, inspired ways of learning,” Spark Festival director Megan Lyon said.
“Back when we started, collaborating across disciplines was considered a new way of working, but it’s clear now that we were onto something as this has become an industry standard.”
Attendees are encouraged to listen to a variety of industry speakers chosen for their work in multidisciplinary areas, ask questions, experiment, and put their learnings into practice in a series of hands-on workshops available.
“We’ve seen global changes in the creative industries over the past 20 years, yet our core beliefs remain true,” Megan said.
“Creatives need inspired ways of learning. Sharing conversations with experienced voices in the industry creates conditions where creatives learn, grow and flourish.”
Megan said Wintec are pleased to be welcoming back Wintec Media Arts graduates to speak at this year’s festival about the amazing things they’re doing within their creative careers.
Wintec graduates who are set to share their experiences are Steven Edwards from Weta Workshop and Jeff Burch, art director at Conde Nast in New York. As well as Ryan Delaney, creative director and co-founder at Overdose Digital, Voyager award-winning Stuff journalist Ruby Nyika and artist Lance Harris who will all speak at the graduate panel event.
They are joined by a who’s who of creative visionaries including writer, curator and community builder Sara Radin; composer Ned Paul Ginsburg from New York; as well as photographer and editor Emily Nathan of Oakland California.
“Our international speakers bring global experiences with them and they are living proof for our students and the public attending Spark that there is a real world of opportunities out there,” Megan said.
Spark speakers and presenters are chosen for their expertise and work in multidisciplinary areas. The annual line-up of speakers aims to inspire and learn from one another.
Megan’s personal experience of Spark dates back to 2005 when she moved back to Hamilton to study.
“I still remember hearing from Joshua Davies who is a New York designer. He had designed album covers for the band Tool which had won all these awards. He entertained the audience greatly by showing photos of the framed awards above a grotty toilet. At the time what struck me is I was hearing from somebody outside my field, but it was fascinating,” Megan said.
“Storytelling is at the heart of every festival and bringing together all these creatives in one place makes magic.”
To find out more information or to read the Spark Festival programme visit www.spark.net.nz/