Four US creatives join a record lineup for Spark festival
Jeff Burch, a Wintec graduate who now works at Condé Nast in New York, is one of four speakers travelling from the United States to share their experience at Wintec’s Spark festival.
Four multi-talented creative visionaries from the United States will join a record lineup of speakers at the Spark International Festival of Music, Media, Arts and Design at Wintec from 6-9 August.
They are creative director at premiere media company Condé Nast, Jeff Burch, writer, curator and community builder Sara Radin, and composer Ned Paul Ginsburg from New York; plus photographer and editor Emily Nathan of Oakland California. They join a record line-up of 22 speakers from the creative sector who are taking part in the 20th year of Wintec’s Spark Festival in Hamilton.
“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,” says Spark Festival director Megan Lyon.
Spark speakers and presenters are chosen for their expertise and work in multidispinary areas and Megan says sharing conversations with experienced voices in industry provides the conditions where creatives can learn, flourish and grow.
Jeff Burch graduated from Wintec in 2004 and moved to Australia to begin his career at GQ and Vogue. Fast forward over a decade and he’s now based at the World Trade Centre in New York City, working as Art Director at W Magazine and Condé Nast. Jeff will host a free talk and a workshop at Spark on working as a creative in the global luxury market.
Emily Nathan is an international photographer who has worked with Airbnb, Apple, Condé Nast Traveler, Dell, The New Yorker, Real Simple, The Ritz Carlton, Samsung and Sony. She is the force behind Tiny Atlas Quarterly a travel, fashion lifestyle magazine and that will be the focus of her Spark talk. The magazine covers many genres and with more than 4,000,000 submissions and counting, #mytinyatlas is one of the most used travel hashtags on Instagram. Emily will talk at Spark about turning a personal project into a global brand and at her workshop, she will take participants on a photo walk to shoot on location for Instagram.
Sara Radin is a New York writer, curator and a community builder, who describes herself as a “multi-hyphenate who vacillates across diverse media” – in other words, an explorer of all creative fields. Sara is will coach people through the new world of walk at her talk. Her workshop on trend forecasting which she’s done for companies such as Ralph Lauren and Converse.
Ned Paul Ginsburg, a composer and arranger will take a close examination of the relationship between composing and orchestrating as it relates to commercial work in musical theatre, film and television at Spark. Ned will also share insights from his work on various projects in Hollywood film and television, and in live theatre, including: Liza Minnelli (Broadway), Michael Collins (Elliot Goldenthal), Galavant (Alan Menken), Aladdin (Broadway in London) and Wonder Pets (Nickelodeon) at his workshop.
Spark’s international speakers are just part of the diverse creative lineup of talented visionaries at Wintec from 6-9 August. The festival is free and open to all although registration is essential for workshops. Find out more on Spark’s website.
About Spark
The Spark International Festival of Music, Media, Arts and Design 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. It was named after an artwork a student created which gave off a spark.
Fast forward 20 years and Spark now attracts international and national guests to present across the creative disciplines, and every year more Wintec alumni return for a week-long celebration of inspired creativity.
Read Global creative visionaries line up for Spark Festival.
Read Spark Festival internship gives Wintec student valuable insight into the design world.
Find out about studying towards a career in the creative sector at Wintec.
Follow #wintecspark
