SUNDRE – A team of Alberta-based sculptors led by a veteran Bergen-area artist intends to share their creative talent in China at the upcoming Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival and along the way spread a message of peace.
Morton Burke, the curator and owner of the Bergen Rocks International Sculpture Park, last competed at the event – said to be the world’s largest cold weather carving competition – in January of 2020 with a different crew of creative collaborators months before the country essentially closed off to the world during the pandemic.
The squad of sculptors consists of Burke, the team’s captain, who will be accompanied by artistic comrades Will Truchon and Linda Frena, both from Edmonton.
The trio will represent Canada and The Atti2ude Club, which is a global organization of artists and arts administrators boasting members from more than 30 countries. The competition takes place Jan. 5-9.
Burke says there’s more to making art than creating something aesthetically appealing to the eye; art can also serve to provoke thought or for example send a message amid ongoing political turmoil and the human cost extolled by conflict.
“We tend to do things that are currently relevant,” he told the Albertan.
“The last time we were in Harbin, we did one that was talking about the environment,” he said.
At the time, the team came home with a gold medal for artistic excellence for their piece titled The Power of Nature, which depicted the busts of four bison pointed toward the north, south, east and west.
“This year, we’re doing one that will be speaking to the conflicts in the world,” he said, calling war an issue people largely seem to be universally aware of.
“Our sculpture will address these major conflicts in the world."
While specific details on the final design elements will remain under wraps until the piece is unveiled, he said the entry will be called The Spirit of Peace.
War is nothing new to humanity, but the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the more recent strife in the Middle East have become increasingly distressing, he said.
“You think that society is kind of moving ahead and away from its ignorance,” he lamented.
Yet Burke said he all-too-regularly comes face-to-face with unabashed ethnic hate.
“I’m running into people who are blatantly racist,” he said, specifically concerning Israel’s war with Palestine.
“It’s amazing how many anti-Semites there are, and the other way around,” he said, referring to Islamophobes.
“It’s horrible.”
Aside from feeling compelled to share a deeper message that hopefully encourages sober reflection and inspires goodwill, Burke confessed also harbouring a personal passion for sculpting during the winter.
“I really enjoy cold weather carving, but I can’t do nearly as much as I’d like,” he said, adding he picks one event from numerous invitations he typically receives every fall.
Last year, the team competed at the World Snow Sculpture Championships, which were hosted in Minnesota in a community called Stillwater.
“We got invited to that again this year,” said Burke. “But we chose Harbin instead; it’s much bigger and much – well, it’s the ultimate in the cold weather carving world, is to go to Harbin.”
Located in northern China near Siberia where temperatures reach lows in the range of -30 C to -40 C, spells of warm weather aren’t expected to hamper the artists, who each day of the contest will be bused to and from the sculpture site and limited to working from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Fortunately, years of field work in the oilpatch – including plenty of trips in Alberta’s north – have familiarized and perhaps arguably even acclimatized Burke with frigid temperatures. Having travelled to Southeast Asia, he’s also experienced the opposite end of the extreme temperature spectrum.
“I have decided that the heat is every bit as bad as the cold; when it’s extreme, it’s unbearable,” he said.
But at least a person can always add on another layer when it’s cold.
“You can make yourself comfortable in extreme cold. But in extreme heat, if there’s no air conditioning available, you can’t make yourself comfortable.”
So stories about the temperatures in Harbin – which he will be visiting only for the second time – plunging to -40 C don’t particularly intimidate him.
“The year we went it was apparently quite mild at about minus 20,” he said.
But “I’ve talked to other artists that have been there and say quite often, it hovers around the minus 40 (range) during the symposium, and that scares some people from ever going back.”
And while China continues to require visitors show proof of vaccination, Burke said that wasn’t a problem for him either.
“I have no issue with that whatsoever,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s kind of a humanistic thing to do, is get your vaccine.”
While bringing a title and a gold medal back home would certainly be a welcome bonus, Burke was primarily grateful for the chance to compete alongside top international talent.
“Being chosen kind of qualifies you as being pretty good at it,” he said, adding the team is “not putting a lot of stock” in coming home crowned as champions.
“I guess you’ve got that in the back of your mind; it’d be nice to win something or be recognized,” he said. “But the truth is that the calibre of artists that attend these high-level events, it’s just – as far as I’m concerned at least with my experience – that it’s just . . . a shake of the dice.
“They have to pick somebody, but all the sculptures are pretty much tied.”
Both the World Snow Sculpture Championships and Harbin Ice and Snow are sanctioned by the International Association of Snow and Ice Sculpture based in Finland.
Burke encourages and invites anyone who is so inclined to follow the team’s progress in Harbin through his social media presence on a Facebook page by his name that he said will be updated daily throughout the competition.
