MSP Terminal 1, B Tunnel Projection Gallery
November 5, 2025 - August 1, 2026

NORTH is an installation by Minneapolis-based composer and multi-sensory artist Mary Ellen Childs, based on the stark winter environments of the north. The work combines recorded music performed by Zeitgeist and projected imagery of northern snowscapes in Minnesota and the Arctic terrain of Svalbard, just 10 degrees from the North Pole. The result is a work that considers our northernmost lands and their connection to all of us wherever we live.

NORTH is inspired by time Childs spent in the Arctic, departing from the international territory of Svalbard, 10 degrees from the North Pole, they lived aboard a Tall Ship, sailing and making landfall daily to experience the terrain and collect photos and video. Childs came away with profound artistic impressions of the spare, often subtle, and occasionally violent sounds of the Arctic; the overwhelming breadth of the landscape and seascapes; and the predominant Arctic hues of white, pink, blue. For Childs, this experience underscores the way in which the air we breathe, the water we use, and the earth we tread is shared by all on the planet.

Duration: 1 hour

Mary Ellen Childs
Composer / Director / Concept

Musicians
Zeitgeist: Heather Barringer & Patti Cudd, percussion;
Nicola Melville, piano; Pat O’Keefe, clarinets

Video Editors:
Tamara Ober
Caitlin Hammel

Camera:
Mary Ellen Childs
Lindsy Halleckson
Tamara Ober

Producer:
Heather Barringer, Zeitgeist

About the artist

Composer and multi-sensory artist Mary Ellen Childs creates rhythmic, exuberant instrumental works and bold, kinetic compositions that integrate music, movement, and visual imagery in unexpected ways. Childs writes chamber music, vocal music and opera, and has created numerous "visual percussion" pieces that embody the concept of music in motion.

She creates distinctive sound worlds and often writes for specic architectural environments. ‘Stone Steel Wood Glass Light,’ commissioned for Chicago Architectural Biennial, drew inspiration from the Farnsworth House, a glass house designed by Mies van der Rohe, where it was performed. Her full-length ‘Dream House,’ based on destruction and construction, was accompanied by multi-image video of construction sites.

She has received commissions, grants, and residencies from the Walker Art Center, Opera America, The Kitchen, Other Minds, MAP Fund, Kronos quartet, the Bellagio Center in Italy, Yaddo, and the Emily Harvey Foundation. She has been named a United States Artist Fellow.

She is a composer interested in all the senses; for the last several years she has been researching and creating work that combines music and scent. Recent sound-scent installations include ‘Aromusic’ at Proyecto ‘ace in Buenos Aires and ’Smell Hear’ in Fes, Morocco.

Zeitgeist is a new music chamber ensemble comprised of two percussion, piano and woodwinds, based in the rural community of Red Wing, Minnesota. One of the longest established new music groups in the country, Zeitgeist commissions and presents a wide variety of new music for audiences in Minnesota and throughout the nation.

NORTH was made possible by contributions from the MAP Fund, the Minnesota State Arts Board, John Nuechterlein, Daniel La Vigne, and the many donors to the Zeitgeist Commissioning Collective as part of Zeitgeist’s DECADE Five project celebrating the ensemble’s fifth decade. Mary Ellen Childs is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.