Artists and architects converged in Kemi and Rovaniemi, Lapland to design architectonic structures out of snow and ice for The Snow Show.
This first-of-a-kind exhibition of contemporary environmental art replaces the familiar, permanent materials of art and architecture with the unusual, ephemeral element of water in its frozen forms. The project examines collaboration and materiality by breaking the initial fixity of ideas and challenging traditional conceptions. The free flow of communication between the participants will result in unique constructions of significant scale – works that defy conventional wisdom and astonish with their spatial and visual beauty. Never has art and architecture had to meet in such a context before. The participants are faced with a double challenge: that of collaboration with their partners, as well as the structural challenge of a new material. All together over sixty icons and emerging talents from the fields of art and architecture, from over two dozen countries, have been invited to work together in this experimental and highly challenging process.
Although all the installations are beautiful, I am most impressed by the work of Zaha Hadid + Cai Guo-Qiang (pics), Morphosis + Do-Ho Suh (pics), Enrique Norten + Lawrence Weiner (pics) and Lebbeus Woods + Kiki Smith (pics).
(via list.)