Aidan Urquhart, Sunshine Thoughts: Knowing that his installation would be in the middle of a frozen lake with white all around it, Aidan Urquhart came to Ice Follies with an idea in mind, to recreate the thoughts of summertime in the bitter cold environment. Using hundreds of yards of fabric and a supply of 3000 staples on both the interior and exterior, Aidan was able to succeed in his goal by turning a simple ice-fishing hut into a summer getaway on a frozen lake in the middle of winter. Inside the hut Aidan included imagery of summer…
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Dieter Schmeiger, Lympische Hausen, 2010
Wind Hausen is the working title for a large colourful sculptural piece by Wernemunde artist, Dieter Schmieger. Schmieger will create a multi-colored “tentacled” form on the ice that will catch the winds in fascinating ways and will at some moments look like huge flames.
Kevin Yates, Marcy Adzich, Donavan Barrow, To Catch a Fish Takes Luck, 2008
Team Kevin consists of Kevin Yates, Marcy Adzich, and Donavan Barrow. These three artists collaborated to create monuments to fishermans luck using an old ice hut and Lots of hot glue. Their plan was to construct an elaborate rickety chamber that would pay homage to ice fishing and the elements of luck that surround the sport.
Jeannie Thib, Cache, 2008
Jeannie Thib, Cache: It is strange how an artist, a good one, can turn up everywhere. It takes so little to trigger a memory. I looked through the frost patterns on our sunroom window one freezing morning last week and marveled at how the frost had appeared to embroider and thereby essentially redesign the tool shed standing just outside the window.
Peter Nickle, Ice Cracks, 2008
Ice Cracks by Peter Nickle is a sound art installation is that operated from a small recreational vehicle parked adjacent to the lake. Inside the vehicle North Bay artist, Peter Nickle assembled the audio recording gear he needed to record, amplify in playback the sound of the ice. These groans and cracks were recorded by three microphones that Nickle planted directly into the ice for the duration of the show.
Donald Lawrence, One Eye Folly, 2008
The One Eye Folly by Donald Lawrence is a camera obscura that was constructed on top of a small rowboat. The work is configured as a piece of microarchitecture that is a hybrid form between a boat and a shed; the premise of ice follies (created by Dermot Wilson) being to create something inspired by the notion of an ice-fishing hut.
Derek Knight, Duncan MacDonald & Melissa Smith, H.O.M.E.S.: Expedition Model, 2008
Derek Knight, Duncan MacDonald & Melissa Smith are a recently formed collective of artists from St. Catherines. For Ice Follies they created a research station in the form Im an inflatable iceberg. Their pseudo-organization, The Great Lakes Institute, officially proclaimed Lake Nipissing a great lake on February 23rd, 2008.
Nicole Dextras, Resource, 2008
Resource was a new structural installation work by environmental artist Nicole Dextras from Vancouver, made of tower ice letters that melted and morphed with Lake Nipissings elements. The lake and the water labeled as a singular business term did raise valid and present questions regarding our environment, the most pressing concern of Canadians before the economic bubble burst, and our societys history of exploiting all natural resources available. During the installation process, Dextras further pointed out issues of ownership of water from a political perspective in local, national, and international terms, particularly with the polar ice melting and our environment drastically changing.
Christine Charette and Jeremy Bean, Rewind in Fast Forward, 2008
The ice hut Christine Charette and Jeremy Bean created for the Ice Follies 2008 Biennial consisted of a wooden representation of a crystalline mound, a pod frozen in time, and a figure in silhouette. Inside, the structure explores found mini-exhibits sealed in niches and creches myth, historical artifacts, and the wonder of discovery. The display cubes are packed with relics from different eras, remarkable objects, without rhyme or reason, a sort of collection trying to make sense of earth’s human and imagined past.
Lise Beaudry, Video Ice Hut #1, 2006
Lise Beaudry repurposed an existing and functional ice hut to house an audiovisual display documenting her own experience of ice fishing with her family. The work included a small bare monitor that the artist mounted onto the unadorned plywood interior of the hut. The monitor displayed a continuous loop showing the typical ice fishing scene of her family with a soundtrack of them in casual friendly conversation. The audio was available in both French and English according to the speaker’s…