Lanterns of Ursa Minor
Installation at the Snow Show in Lapland.
Five meditative spaces, each accommodating one person, each exuding the distinctive scent and taste, acoustics and intimacy of ice and snow. The miniature scale of the world of ice was brought close for discovery. The five ice lanterns were each linked to the northern sky by the light of the five named stars in the constellation of Ursa Minor, as projected on Rovaniemi at 8 pm on 10 February 2004.
The building technique of these lanterns was in principle the same as when you make small ice lanterns with buckets of water. The mould is filled with water and left out to freeze, until it can be reversed and emptied.
Our lanterns were not reversed for obvious structural reasons; they were emptied in place by making the entrance. A few experiments with a 1:2 model were needed before a suitable technique was found – and as far as we know, this has never been tried in such a scale before.
The word carved in each lantern was designed by the American artist Robert Barry.
