Art and design of ice and snow

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Suite 316

Torne river

‘Come away o human child to the waters and the wild’…Yeats
“An imagined experience, drifting through the ice of the Torne River, to be a bubble…this imagining is dragged out from my initial meeting with the river, two years ago. David Andren and myself, Benjamin Gilbert, headed out to sledge upon the newly frozen river, before the snow. We were staring at small bubbles forming, that wonderful twilight morning.

The bubbles seemed to stare back at us. Rivers do that. Natural ice does that, it reflects when you sculpt it, reading your feelings well. With the quality natural ice of ICEHOTEL we hope to form an intimate con-versation with space.

Lumi, Irja Ahi’s animation figure, draws a more direct relationship with an expressed playfulness of ice and snow, ‘the material of the children’.”

Ben Gilbert

Ben Gilbert grew up in Yackandandah, Australia, and went on to study Sculpture and Furniture design in Tasmania. Ben’s design approach tends to draw on water structures and special questions of dynamics. He has lived in Scandinavia and the Baltic’s for over three years, working in ice and metal, learning from master sculptors Rashid Sagadeev of Russia and Kalle Pruuden of Estonia.

Ben currently operates a studio/workshop in Yackandandah creating a variety of large sculptural projects and Architectural commissions. Career highlights include being Project manager of a major Ice project in Lofoten, Norway.

Irja Ahi

Irja Ahi was born in Haapsalu, Estonia, where she was educated in music, economics and leant to play both violin and saxophone.
She graduated from Tartu Art School as professional photographer.
Irja became interested in ice sculpting in the fall of 2004, whilst assisting Ben Gilbert and has since par-ticipated in ice sculpting events in Sweden, Finland, Latvia and Estonia. She currently works as graphic designer in the field of advertising.

Kalle Pruudens

Kalle Pruudens is the director of Hansanova, a diverse sculpture workshop in Tallinn, Estonia. He has participated in ice, snow and metal sculpting competitions around the world. Studying sculpture during the Russian occupation of Estonia, Kalle’s training was based in traditional skills, which he has extended by developing ingenious construction techniques. The Hansanova Company is recognized as Estonia’s foremost metal and ice sculpture studio, and has commissions throughout Scandinavia.