By icecircle
By icecircle
“Now you see it. Then you don´t.” - Jens Thoms Ivarsson
Jens is a product designer with a master of fine art and design educated in Gothenborg, Sweden and London, UK. He has mainly worked with art and design in the public space creating furnitures and sculptures with his friend Mats Nilsson. The duo has done numerous projects and exhibitions world wide. Jens also teaches the design process and does lectures. Since 2003 Jens has worked with snow and ice for ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi where he now lives with his family. In 2012 he became Director of design for ICEHOTEL. Jens works with all types of Design, Design Strategy. and Design processes, and Creative thinking. He is also a lecturer and teacher within art and design.
We spoke with Jens at the Ice Circle launch seminar in Alta, March, 2015:
We were discussing the ‘eternal ephemerality’ or ice. Is that something Design can learn from?
Absolutely. Imagine: the earth was created at some point, some billions of years ago. The water we are working with could have come from a comet- its ancient and essential stuff. Two different materials met and collided, basically stone and water. They became a frozen moment. Hot lava froze into stone, and water turned into ice. It’s this moment of change that artists and designers often explore in the materials and contexts they work with. Moments of change. Tipping points. How materials age next together. How they behave. It’s fundamental stuff, but ice also teaches us about the nature of continuous change. The seasons, nature’s needs, human needs in winter climates, and of course, climate change. These are new frontiers for design in general. We always think about the negative aspects of snow and ice, how to get rid of it, how to avoid it. We’ve hardly scratched the surface of how to use it as a material.
How long is something ephemeral?
It’s a good question. It all depends on the point of view, the objectives of a project. We follow the melting process of the ICEHOTEL too- it is so beautiful. We spend so long making details, crafting interiors and design elements –always knowing it will melt and return to the river again. And during the process, the sound changes in the building, the atmosphere is fantastic. It’s not sad- its liberating. The ice hotel doesn’t collapse, it opens up in the centre to reveal the sky and the surroundings of the place where it started. There is so much new knowledge to be gained about snow and ice.
But there is a high risk of making mistakes working with such a volatile material?
Yes – but the volatility also opens possibilities. Designers always ask “How do I avoid mistakes?” Ernst Billgren’s book ‘Vad är Konst 2′ (What is art 2) says that the short answer is to sit very still! As soon as humans do something there are mistakes, but mistakes also lead to discoveries. All our genetic development and success is built on learning from mistakes. When I work in stone or concrete and it is placed in city, there is a lot of pressure as the object will lasts for a lifetime. Working in snow and ice is very freeing in a way. You can be more brave and experimental. Less self conscious and more playful.
How do you work with seasons of water and light at the ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi?
You’d think it all happens in the winter as the focus is on ice art but we are moving to all year round. In the summer there is rafting, fishing and other nature activities and the phenomenon of the sun never setting at night- that is a very special experience to have. Also we are preparing for the water to freeze long before it does. It’s the pivotal moment for us, as we invite artists from all over the world. And those artists are not all traditional ice sculptors. We work with people from all background to explore what they can create with ice as a material.
We can also funnel water from the river, and blow it through snow canons to create a material we call “snice” –manufactured snow. We can throw snow onto moulds. Sometimes we use reinforcement to create very large structures. We are also learning more ever year about how to use ice reinforcement. The old way is to create giant moulds for architectural structures where the walls are built with plywood moulds and filled with snice, much like the process for creating concrete buildings. By exploring ice reinforcement we open new doors to resourceful innovation in architecture.
How many people are involved in constructing the ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi every year?
At the ICEHOTEL we have a team of over 50 people who work on the structure alone. Then there is all the finishing work on interior design, lighting and so on. Tools and methods are developing all the time and its important to share this knowledge.
Focus on working together is important – the joy comes when it is finished! One of the hardest jobs is being on roof in minus 35 connecting wires without gloves. It’s the engineers, technicians and ice workers we really have to thank! They make these ideas possible.
What other type of work do you do there?
One example is that we send ice and snice all over world- and send our engineers to make large events possible. For examples we created a catwalk for Chanel at the Grand Palais in Paris. We needed to install a cooling system for the 40 m long 8 m high catwalk. Karl Lagerfeld ordered it. We had to tell him not to wear boots not to get wet. He was great fun to work for. We asked him to lick the ice and he obliged!
Yes, we cut out a huge disc in the river and added a boat engine. It was a simple intervention to see if the disc would rotate – and it did! It rotated at a perfectly even speed. It worked out better than we anticipated it would. Nature is like that.
By icecircle
Flower Power was a snow sculpture at Snøskulptur Hovden 2007-2011, an annual snow sculpture exhibition that aims to become the leading resource centre for snow and ice sculpture of this category in Northern Europe. Curated by Ole Morten Rokvam. Sculpture by Laila Kolostyák.
By icecircle
The Dollhouse was a suite at the ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, designed by Nina Hedman in 2009; 18 days of work in a snowroom of 25 square meters square.
Nina: “Im a sculptor who, during the last 15 years, have been travelling to the North to work with snow and ice. I have designed and built suites at Icehotel Jukkasjärvi and have also participated in Snow and Ice sculpture events in different cities.”
By icecircle
‘The Stallo and the Silver Moon’ was a stage design by Laila Kolostyák at the Borealis Winter Festival, Alta, Norway in 2015. Snow and ice is one of of Laila Kolostyák’s main material of expression, a material suited for working in large format in public areas- and engaging the local community. Laila has been cooperating with local people for many years, involving schools, artists and the municipality in creating large snow and ice installations to transform the city center. She works closely with Mari Bottolfsen and other teachers at the local college to work with more than four hundred teenagers and professional artists every year, working together and increasing a sense of community. The installations have become a focal point in the town centre and have contributed to the identity of Alta as a winter destination.
By icecircle
20 international professional artist teams challenge each other creating the best and most impressive snow sculpture. The sculpture park is situated just outside Kirovsk in North western Russia in Snegoled Snow Village who has more than 20 000 visitors each year.
By icecircle
Arctic Snow Room was an arctic attraction designed to develop Arctic Design in urban environments. The attraction was built at the heart of Rovaniemi city on a two-storey car park built in the 1980's on Pekankatu street.
The Lapland Snow Design Project initiated and designed the attraction, which was built by the Art and Design faculty of University of Lapland together with the Rovaniemi University of Applied sciences. The production was supported by City-Hotel, the city of Rovaniemi´s economic and regional development unit, BRP Finland Oy and FlatlightFilms.
Arctic Snow Room was a part of the World Design Capital 2012 Helsinki - Rovaniemi collaboration.
By icecircle
Ecosphere, a cycle ….
Like the earth
The output of on organism, the input of the 'other'
Life likes to move
Life likes to grow
Algae converts sunlight into movement
Endless links connecting
Shared ideas feed innovation
Renewing
By icecircle
The Lapland Snow Design Application enables designing and building snow and ice environments on the Internet. It is an interactive design tool for constructing example snow constructions from available pre made snow models. The application was developed by a group of Lapland University of Applied Sciences
(Lapland UAS) students of the Software Engineering Laboratory, pLAB in cooperation with the Lapland Snow Design project.
The concept behind the Snow Design Application software is that it enables anyone to design snow and ice environments by using the pre-defined models of the application. The models are based on the tested real-life models that have been applied in various snow environments in Lapland over a number of years. The application is created for serving the customers’ needs. The user interface is designed to be easy and user-friendly where the user himself is the designer of the desired product. The application is made to help the visualization of the product easier. It enables to create and test ideas.
By icecircle
Shown here, Ivan Loktiukhin, from Kirovsk, Russia sculpts an amazing art work at high speed. His performance is an intriguing and dangerous ice saw dance! The crazy saw is an exciting high speed ice sculpting competition that is fun for spectators of all ages to watch. Sculptors all get the same size ice block to carve and bring their idea to life in only 30 minutes. It's a fun spectacle at any winter event!