ICE ON PARADE

(Website for basic demonstational purposes, appropriate pages to be created)

Ice on Parade is a conceptual art project of a series of Ice People sculptures freezing in Antarctica and melting in the United States. The Ice People are simple gender-neutral snowmanesque frozen spheres that are a personification of our Earth's Environment. The disappearing images of the Ice People in the United States in contrast with the appearance of the sustainable images of the Ice People in Antarctica is a mental metaphor for contrasting climates and resources emphasizing the similarity, beauty, and fragility of the world with the hope of greater Environmental empathy.  This project is currently proposing support through The National Science Foundation’s, Antarctic Artist and Writers Program.

Ice on Parade is intellectually rooted in Environmental Art and the artwork of such people as Andy Goldsworthy, Michael Heizer, and Walter De Maria.  Combining the history of Environmental Art with accessible images of snowmen, this project broadly outreaches to impact women, men, and children for promoting learning and understanding about Antarctica and the Environment.  Art historically it references the Pop-Art subject of the Lions on Parade project by Walter Knapp. He conceived a series of lion sculptures displayed in public throughout the city of Zurich, Switzerland in 1998. Since then, his project spawned other projects, including: Guitars on Parade in Austin, the Camels on Parade in Dubai, and perhaps the world renown Cows on Parade which began in Chicago and has travelled to various locations around the world, excluding Antarctica. Therefore, like such communities as Seattle, which used their iconic “Pike Place Market pig” to create Pigs on Parade, this project proposes a Parade particular to the habitat, culture, and resources celebrating great Antarctica.  

The project targets the philosophical artistic and scientific audiences of galleries and conferences, and aspires to reach the everyday person through the mass-media with this website photos, videos, and Myspace, and Wiki pages.  The website will serve as a hub to alert the public about the Parade in Antarctica and the United States, sharing links to other sites about Antarctica and the Environment. Finally, the project will be assembled as a travelling show for exhibiting in intellectual settings at art galleries and for presentations at architectural conferences, universities, and high schools. 

The Antarctic Ice People will be created in the Antarctic summer around December 21, 2009 solstice, residing in three locations, McMurdo Station, Scott-Amundsen Station at the South pole, and a yet to-be-determined location. Each location will have one, two, or three Ice People with an iconic simple geometric spheres . The Ice People will be constructed with ice, snow, and liquid water from various techniques of compacting, excavating, and pouring, given the limits of the location. The process of creating these objects will be video documented, and the Ice People will be photographed with the various light of the constant summer day to share with others on-line, for presentations, and as images for art galleries.  

The United States Ice People expedition will begin in the United States on the first day of summer, June 21, 2010, in Central Park, New York, and then move west to the Las Vegas Strip, and conclude with a final performance in California at Death Valley. Each location will have one to three Ice People made into the same iconic form; however, the United States Ice People will be generated from liquid only. Each Ice Person will be photo and video documented extensively as it is comes to life, greets the public, and melts away, disappearing forever. 

-R. Yauger Williams