Ice Follies 2023

February 10th - 24th, 2023

Theme: Nbaagzi Mkwam (Thin Ice)
The 2023 theme “Thin Ice” looks at our shifting landscapes and communities, including our changing relationships with our environment and each other.

Andrew Ackerman, Chris Kosloski, Quinn Pelletier, and Nipissing University Students Jada de Jeu, Evyn Martin, Hailey Park, Caitlin Tremblay, and Megan Taylor, im•pulse, 2023

im•pulse is a site-specific sculpture installation integrated within the frozen surface of LakevNipissing. The sculptural elements consist of several organic and geometrically shaped translucent forms resembling fragments of ice that have punctured the solid yet permeable surface.

LED lights contained within the sculptural fragments emit a warm pinkish-red glow that contrasts with the cold bluish winter landscape, and which from a distance resemble fire pits. Viewers are invited to navigate through and around the forms with other participants, providing opportunities for communal gathering and collectively generated experiences.

im•pulse is a response to the 2023 Ice Follies theme, Thin Ice, which explores our shifting landscapes and communities. The work is also informed by the sense of precarity, fragility, and vulnerability evoked by the theme. When experienced alone and at night, the expansive frozen plane of Lake Nipissing can elicit notions of isolation, danger, and even fear, not unlike the experiences faced by many of us over the past several years of the pandemic. As we emerge from this isolation, this long period of dormancy, we encounter new opportunities to connect with each other. Yet we are also reminded of the lingering dangers that exist. Both the lake and sculpture serve as metaphors for the new possibilities that lie ahead, as well as the tenuous and precarious state of this new shifting social landscape.

Artist Bio:

Andrew Ackerman
Andrew Ackerman’s practice is based in sculpture and site-specific public installation. His work explores aspects of the human condition, the corporeal body, and place-making. He employs a variety of material-based approaches in his practice, ranging from modelling and casting to wood and metal fabrication.

Ackerman exhibits work both nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at Martha Street Studio (Winnipeg, MB), the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (Gimpo-Si, Gyeonnggi, South Korea), the International Conference on Residency Education (Halifax, NS), the Alberta Craft Council (Edmonton, AB), and the Santa Paula Museum of Fine Art (Santa Paula, CA). Andrew is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Nipissing University, where he teaches courses in drawing, sculpture, and interdisciplinary studio practice.

Chris Kosloski
Chris Kosloski is a video artist, college professor and filmmaker. A graduate of the Confederation College film program in Thunder Bay, Ontario (1996), he has worked in the film industry for over 12 years as a technician and editor and is now a professor of Digital Cinematography at Canadore College in North Bay. Chris has exhibited a number video art and projection pieces including “Your Sadness Means Everything to Us” at the Definitely Superior Art Gallery Juried Show 2008, “All Diesels are Turbo” was featured on the video art blog Niche LA in 2013. “Lyceum Projection” was a large-scale projection mapping project which Chris co-created for the City of Thunder Bay in 2014. Chris was named a finalist for the 2016 KM Hunter Artist Award. “Proxyscope”, a multi-channel projection/sculpture was featured at the 2017 Bay Street Film Festival. His latest media art installation, “Embodied Terrains,” was a collaboration with visual artist and sculptor Andrew Ackerman for the 2018 Ice Follies exhibit in North Bay — a biennial festival of contemporary and community art on lake Nipissing.

Nipissing Students: Jada de Jeu, Evyn Martin, Hailey Park, Caitlin Tremblay, Megan Taylor
Jada de Jeu (3rd year Fine Arts Major), Evyn Martin (3rd year Fine Arts and Biology Major), Hailey Park (1st year Undeclared Major), Caitlin Tremblay (2nd year Fine Arts Major), and Megan Taylor (1st year Fine Arts Major) are currently studying at Nipissing University, in North Bay Ontario. They share a passion for the visual arts and over the past several months have been developing their knowledge and practice of sculpture and community-based installation.