THE SNOW SHOW
LOCATION | KEMI, FINLAND
STATUS | COMPLETED _ 2004
CHIEF CURATOR | LANCE M. FUNG
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN | ANAMORPHOSIS ARCHITECTS & ROULA KOTSILATI (AS TEAM)
ARTIST COLLABORATION | EVA ROTHSCHILD
CONSTRUCTION | EUROPEAN STUDENT VOLUNTEERS
PHOTOGRAPHS | NIKOS GEORGIATHIS
The Morphic Excess of the Natural/Landscape in Excess
Installation at the Snow Show in Lapland.
The Snow Show was a unique International exhibition in Finnish Lapland in 2004 of installations made out of ice and snow. In commissioning these ephemeral structures, curator Lunce Fung initiated collaborations between some of the world’s leading architects and artists, including Zaha Hadid + Cai Guo-Qiang, Tadao Ando + Tatsuo Miyajima, Dilleer-Scofidio + John Rollof, Future Systems + Anish Kapoor, Hollmen-Reuter-Sandman + Robert Bary, Atara Isozaki + Yoko Ono, Morphosis + Do-ho Suh, and Ocean North + Ernesto Neto, etc.
Crystal and Archaic Theatre: Snow is falling landscape in excess, nature’s own animation, simultaneously natural and artificial. Eva worked with the concept of the crystal (mythical and structural). Anamorphosis focused on the archaic theatre the spatial condition of play, collectiveness, static function and interaction, turning snow into a performance of itself. We inverted the theater form twice: first, terraces became a sheltered alcove and an extrovert terraced hill and, second screens of ice became a stage for light and shadow play as people walked through the piece.
Realization/Symbiosis: The morphic excess of the natural did not demand that the artwork transcended reality, nor that architecture was simply functional. When it was snowing, Crystal and Theatre spoke the same morphic language, and art and architecture exchanged roles: architecture sculpted the landscape whilst art built and materialized it.
