Amy Switzer. 2 Word Bird. Ice Follies 2010, Lake Nipissing.

Ice Follies is a biennial exhibition on the 4'-thick ice of Lake Nipissing, this year from February 14-March 20.   Hosted by the WKP Kennedy Public Art Gallery, Ice Follies is – 'eight site-specific artworks that consider or thematically reflect the idea of the ice fishing hut'.  Ice Follies started in 2004 and has some documentation of previous Ice Follies on their website: www.icefollies.ca

Steve Sopinka who wrote about Lake Nipissing's ice fishing huts in On Site 21: weather is one of the artists this year with Out<side>in, an architectural piece that disappears in the wider landscape because it reverses the ice hut tradition of protection, opacity and interiority to an exteriority of perception – of winter, of ice, of the huge space of a frozen lake. 

We have, all around us, artists and designers who think carefully, all the time, of what the architecture of Canada is, with our climate, our weather, our understanding of landscape as a powerful cultural force.  We may huddle in cities, but those cities sit in enormous landforms.  We may have warm houses, buildings, cars and parking garages, but we still come in contact with the weather, no matter where we live.  We have artists, architects and designers who are immensely articulate about being in Canada, and you don't have to look too hard to find them.

Steve Sopinka. Out[side]in. Ice Follies 2010, Lake Nipissing