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Exhibitionists·Video

These artists from Winnipeg are re-creating Canadian camping in Sweden using only ice and snow

From the camper to the campfire, Winnipeg artists Jennie O'Keefe and Chris Pancoe are figuring out how to translate summer into deep winter.

From the camper to the campfire, Jennie O'Keefe and Chris Pancoe are translating summer into deep winter

Mattias Löw and Reshma Mansuri Löw · CBC Arts ·
(CBC Arts)

To get to Jukkasjärvi, Sweden from Winnipeg, Manitoba is no small journey. For artists Jennie O'Keefe and Chris Pancoe, it was their first time figuring out how to create a full installation out of the snow and ice already on-site at Icehotel Sweden, located in this small town considerably north of the Arctic Circle. 

Watch the video:

Icehotel: Spruce Woods

6 years ago
Duration 4:19
Every year, a hotel and art exhibition made of snow and ice opens in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. In one of the rooms is a recreation of a Canadian camping scene.

As two of the artists selected by Icehotel Sweden to dream up rooms this year (every year, the hotel curates a roster of artists from around the world), Pancoe and O'Keefe decided to take their summer love of camping and create a winter experience. With chisels, saws and very thick gloves, they went to work building a camper, massive ice bed and even a freezing campfire to give visitors to the Icehotel a vision of what it's like to be a cozy camper in the Canadian woods.

See the feline-inspired room created for Icehotel Sweden by Halifax artists Sonia Chow and Huschang Pourian here. And you can find out more about the Icehotel here.

Check out more images from other beautiful rooms at the Icehotel below:

Stream CBC Arts: Exhibitionists or catch it on CBC Television Friday nights at 11:30pm (12am NT) and Sundays at 3:30pm (4pm NT). Watch more videos here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mattias Löw and Reshma Mansuri Löw

Mattias Löw is a Swedish film director, documentary filmmaker, film producer, screenwriter, photographer and visiting scholar at various universities. Beginning his career as a music video director, Mattias Löw turned to documentaries and has won acclaim from critics and audiences alike, and been the recipient of several prestigious international TV, film and journalism awards for his sport, educational and social-themed documentaries primarily made for Swedish public TV broadcaster SVT - Sveriges Television. Reshma Mansuri Löw is an Indian writer, poet and former TV presenter for Pakistani channels Geo and TVOne, presently working as a co-producer on various educational and social-themed documentaries, in addition to writing poems and essays for photography exhibitions.