Ice Follies art festival returns to frozen Lake Nipissing this February
Ice Follies is returning to the frozen shores of Lake Nipissing for to weeks to celebrate its tenth anniversary.
The event is biennial contemporary art festival featuring a slate of national and regional artists presented on frozen Lake Nipissing; a distinctly northern way to experience art.
The 2023 theme ‘Thin Ice’ looks at our shifting landscapes and communities, including our changing relationships with our environment and each other.
The festival aims at transforming the coldest month of the year into the most creative month of the year. It’s co-presented by three local arts organizations: Aanmitaagzi, Near North Mobile Media Lab and White Water Gallery.
“It is super amazing to participate in a winter exhibition that is a cure to the February blues, celebrates art outside of conventional settings, and raises awareness of our relationship with our ecosystems,” said Isabelle Michaud, one of the participating artists.
In celebration of the festival’s tenth edition, Ice Follies will welcome new art presenters into the fold from Toronto, New Liskeard and North Bay; making it its biggest year yet.
There will be 13 art projects with 11 of them will be hauled onto the lake, while the other two will be placed in North Bay’s downtown core.
Ice Follies is free to attend and open 24/7 for the duration of the festival. Visitors will have the chance to attend both during the day and at night as they both give off different experiences.
“The installations, some of them do come to life at night. So there would definitely be an opportunity to visit during the day. But also in the evenings,” said Tanya Bedard, Tourism North Bay’s executive director.
Ice Follies 2023 is also partnering with Vox Choir, Creative Industries, Styly, Big Medicine Studio and other partners to offer workshops and community arts projects out on the lake.
To pay homage to Ice Follies’ cultural history, the festival will feature a curated, on-ice retrospective installation from the founder of Ice Follies, Dermot Wilson. The official Ice Follies documentation photographer, Liz Lott, will also create a self-guided historical Ice Follies photo-walk through downtown North Bay, showcasing many the artists from past biennials.
“They’re often artworks that contemplate or consider what it means to be producing or presenting cultural or artistic projects on the context which is Lake Nipissing shared by many different communities,” said Alexander Rondeau, executive co-director of Near North Mobile Media Lab.
For the first time ever, Ice Follies will be offering guided art tours of all the installations being presented that attendees can take part in for $10.
The festival will run from Feb. 10-24, for more information visit their Facebook page.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
For more than two decades, the unknown victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because she was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. But this week, investigators finally revealed her identity.