My project was an environmental design project, and to design and build a playground with snow and ice in Tonttula, Kittila. It was for the family tourists during the Arctic winter.
The purpose of this project was to invite more visitors from Finland and abroad to the Arctic region. In addition, it was for the tourists to get to know the climate of the Arctic Circle and the beauty of nature.
Moreover, it was also for the people who living in the area to rediscover the charm from the local culture and nature and realize the value of the area.
It was carried out on the 15-19th of January 2018. The tourists coming to Lapland during the winter are having interests and feel charms to the natural phenomena. They are eager to feel and see coldness, snow, ice, darkness, Aurora, reindeer, cultures, and so on that existing in the Arctic area.
Therefore, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity for the audience to think about the ecosystem of the natural environment as well as the beauty of natural materials if we create art using snow and ice, which was a natural material symbolizing the sustainable and Arctic Circle.
Tonttula is located in the Lapland region in northern Finland. It is an experiential theme park that is operated by the Hullu Poro group. They own many accommodations and facilities in Levi that is famous as a ski resort. The theme of Tonttula is Santa Claus and its Elves, therefore, the premises consist of old buildings, antique furniture, and things related to fairy tales such as Santa Claus and Elves.
About the contents of the project, I made a winter playground with university students. It was a part of university workshop. I designed a labyrinth with the form of the old books, a slide with a shape of the wooden spoon, some resting snow dome with the figure of Kuksa, and some ice swirls that have shapes of fallen leaves. The inspirations of those ideas were from Finnish traditional crafts, fairy tales, and nature.
In the end, we made 3 snow Kuksa domes and 1 wooden spoon shape of the slide because we had limited workmates and time.
Regarding an animation, I created a simple elves shadow animation and projected it to snow objects as an experiment. I was hoping to make the playground more attractive. My idea was that when a person was playing in the playground and standing between the projector and the object of snow, the shadow of himself would also become a part of an interactive media art because it was projected simultaneously on the animation.
This time, I did the experiment on 4th of February because we did not have enough time to try it during the workshop. It went well even though there were not many audiences. It would also be a possibility of future winter art.