At the Harrison Recreation Center in North Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) is opening a new Spark’d Studio, at 503 N. Irving Ave. where they expect to train local youth ages 10-19 in audio production, music, photography, video, gaming and art.
Harrison is the second Spark’d location; the first MPRB youth studio opened around 20 years ago at the Powderhorn Recreation Center. At the time, Al Bangoura, the current superintendent of MPRB, was the recreation director at Powderhorn Park.
“We had young men sitting in this room who were opposing gang members—kids that had beef with each other,” said Bangoura after building the first Spark’d Studio. “One was producing, one was writing, one was singing, and it was amazing. At Powderhorn, we decided, ‘We gotta do better.’ That’s when we did the downstairs warming room transformation.”
He added, “It’s about listening to our youth and what impacts them. So when these kids see each other out in the streets, they won’t have beef because they know each other and have something in common.”
Spark’d aims to serve youth with free after-school programs in hopes that participants will develop meaningful creative projects and that the activities will help spark interest in the media arts, build community, and provide neighborhood youth with a place to go.”
The studio offers Mac stations and laptops, a professional sound isolation booth, music equipment, cameras and video production equipment, gaming, illustration tablets and 3D printers. Staff provide instruction on how to use the equipment and help youth develop creative projects.
Spark’d Studio also offers students the chance to explore professional fields such as podcasting, design, writing, documentary production, journalism, photography, music production, video production, e-sports, entrepreneurship, art-making, and other careers.
The studio cost a total of $597,000, which included creating a space for child care as well as adding air conditioning to the entire recreation center, and other upgrades. MPRB plans to provide a total of six Spark’d studios: one in the Powderhorn Recreation Center, which was the first; the Harrison Recreation Center, opening later this month; the Whittier Recreation Center, which is scheduled to open in spring 2023; the Luxton Recreation Center opening in summer 2023; the Phillips Community Center in late 2023; and Graco Park in 2025.
Spark’d Studio at Harrison Recreation Center opens on Feb 13. Those interested in joining can either sign up at www.minneapolisparks.org/sparkd or drop by the studio.
