this woman and unicorn scene was the centerpiece of a faerie-related section at the Netherlands Ice Sculpture Festival in Zwolle. This scene was one that I liked even more once I got a look at the photos I took. Love the colors coming through the young woman, who’s presumably a virgin, since that’s supposedly what’s required to get a unicorn’s attention. (I wasn’t clear on who sculpted this piece, unfortunately.)
updated 3/19/24 with another info tidbit. Will almost certainly have more updates as I potentially get more info and work through all the pics and video that I have.
Zwolle: site of the Netherlands Ice Sculpture Festival
Usually, when I add a gallery, like the new Zwolle ice festival one, I also add a post that kind of introduces the gallery and also includes all the numbingly boring surrounding details that would be out of place on the gallery page, but that you’re free to use to put yourself to sleep at night. I added the Zwolle gallery a while ago, as part of the massive photo dump, but I only recently added important details to the gallery page and pictures.
the purple and green were particularly strong in this pic from the gorgeous Fountain of Youth scene by by Rusian Korokov and Irina Tafllevskaya
the basic details about the ice festival
The Zwolle gallery is from the Netherlands Ice Sculpture Festival, situated, not surprisingly, in Zwolle, NL. The festival is closed now, but it ran from 12/16/23 to 2/25/24. I was there in January ’24. The display was open most days between those dates, but was closed Mondays. I created a bit of a time crunch for myself because I missed that crucial detail, but I’ll tell you about that later.
The theme of this year’s festival was Myths and Legends. So what that meant is that any myth or old story was fair game as a topic. I will list as many as I can of the themes that I encountered. I’m sure I’ve missed a few and I’m not going to promise that they’re in the correct order, but they kinda are.
Greek myths, including the Minotaur, Medusa, and Icarus
St. George and the Dragon
Anubis and Egyptian mythology
the Yeti
Izanagi and Izanami, from Japanese creation myths
werewolves
elves and faerie folk
more Greek mythology: Oedipus and the Sphinx
the Fountain of Youth
Indian mythology
the story of Aladdin
the Pied Piper
Faust
Jack Frost
the Boogie Man
Atlantis
Robin Hood
the Flying Dutchman
Dracula
Rama and Sita
the Easter Bunny
the Bermuda Triangle
the Loch Ness Monster
dwarves
unicorns
the Tooth Fairy
King Arthur
Baba Yaga
Lady Godiva
the Zodiac
Mulan
Hans Brinker and the finger in the dike story
Egyptian mummies
Ragnarok
Leprechauns and the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow
So you can see, the whole display had a very wide variety of sculpture designs that pulled from many different cultures. I’m sure they had a bunch more potential ideas, but there are only so many ice sculptures you can make for a large display!
this piece depicted Mulan, the fierce Chinese heroine that disguised herself as a man so that she could join the army in place of her ailing father. (That’s the version I’ve heard anyway.) Sculpted by Vadim Gryadov.
how much did it cost to see all the ice sculptures?
Adult admission was a little over 20 euros, with just under 15 euros for kids. You’d get a discount if you ordered them online which was probably a good idea since they’d give you time slot and the slots looked like they would sometimes fill up. So it was basically around $20 if you wanted to see a lot of very large and well done ice sculptures. This seems like a pretty good deal to me and there was a long wait to get in when I got there.
in this Chinese Zodiac race scene, I feel like the dragon was winning or was about to pull ahead. Exactly as expected since we’re now in the Year of the Dragon. By Ludo Roders
so how did I end up in Zwolle?
Ok, so I was in Italy (which is really another story) earlier this year. I’d flown in to Rome and then I was going to Florence for a bit. I knew about the Netherlands Ice Sculpture Festival in Zwolle, thanks to my facebook feed, so instead of leaving out of Rome, I decided I’d give myself a little extra time and leave out of Amsterdam. That way, I’d have a chance to take a quick train to Zwolle and see the ice.
Of course, there was lots to see in Florence, so at first I wasn’t in a big hurry to leave. And I thought I had a bit of time to get to Zwolle. I was thinking of taking a train from Florence to Amsterdam, which was kind of a long train ride, I think at least 15 hours. But I really liked the idea, because I’d get to see a nice chunk of European scenery along the way.
In hindsight though, it was probably better that I didn’t do that. Looking into that 15+ hour trip Google maps later, I realized that I’d initially missed the part where it wasn’t just sitting on the same train for the whole trip. There were complications like stops, a little walking, and maybe even some parts by bus. Since I’d totally screwed up my 2 earlier attempts to take buses in Italy, that seemed like a recipe for failure. (I did finally manage to take a tram thing that was almost like a bus later in Amsterdam though, so I was learning, slowly.)
At some point, while I was casually looking into how to get to Amsterdam and Zwolle, another distraction showed up. (I am prone to getting distracted, without a doubt.) Eiswelt was going on in Germany. Actually, there were TWO Eiswelts in Germany, one in Rövershagen and one in Elstal, near Berlin. I started to wonder if it was possible to get to those too 🤔
Eventually, I decided that getting to Rövershagen would be tough. But Berlin and Elstal was fairly easy, as long as I didn’t try take a train, since I was starting to realize that the trains didn’t just run nonstop to wherever I needed them to. However, just when I was thinking I’d go to Berlin on the way to Amsterdam, I discovered another problem.
the Loch Ness Monster meets a boy with an apple, by Agnese Ruditze and Sanita Ravina
The Netherlands Ice Sculpture Festival was closed on Mondays. This totally makes sense, since after a long weekend of crowds, everyone needs a rest and maybe the sculptors need a chance to go in and repair any damage to the ice and snow. Since I’d been kind of planning to go to Zwolle on Monday though, that was bad. I briefly considered trying to find someone I knew who could get me in there on Monday, but I wasn’t certain I could pull that off, since I knew sculptors that probably weren’t there anymore, not the organizers that were.
So I had to get to Zwolle by Sunday, since Monday wouldn’t work and my flight out of Amsterdam was on Tuesday. Trains were pretty much out and I’d have to fly. Florence doesn’t really have a big airport, so I took a train to a place that did: Milan. Once I got to Milan on Saturday, it was easy to get a flight to Amsterdam and I was all set to make it to Zwolle on Sunday.
On this whole trip, except for when I was in Florence, most of the time that I had to walk to places, it was raining. Or windy. Or both; mostly both. So the weather was crap 💩 Zwolle wasn’t much different, so I wasn’t really interested in checking out what seemed a pretty interesting small city. In Italy, I’d been given an umbrella when the rain was particularly rough, but I’d stupidly left it hanging on the headboard of my hotel room bed in Florence. I’d all but forgotten it was there actually, since the weather in Florence was so nice!
Anyway, the rain in Zwolle focused me and I pulled up my hood and walked straight to the Ice Festival. I was on a mission! It was less than a mile away, so no big deal.
As I mentioned before, they had time slots for the festival. I was even a little early for mine, which is impressive for me 😬 But then I had to wait in a long line to get in. Which is good, since that means that a lot of people want to see this kind of display! (So totally not complaining!)
the Egyptian god Anubis stares at me looking annoyed. The wings of St. George’s dragon make for an interesting background feature. (Anubis was part of a scene by James Tottle, Andreas Schlichting, and Jaap Tichler)
I goofed with my camera choice
can you see something in this pic of the Hindu goddess Parvati (or manifesting as Durga maybe) that isn’t right? I missed it at first glance, but it didn’t take me long to notice it. I suspect at least 90% didn’t see it at all. (by Thomas Brown)
will the festival be back in Zwolle next year?
I remember reading somewhere that this is the last year the ice sculpture festival will be in Zwolle. I don’t know if that means it’s the last year of the festival period or that it’s going to move elsewhere. Reading comments on facebook makes me think it’s the latter though, and I get the impression that there are some changes going on with the current location of the festival in Zwolle, so that’s why it won’t be there again. But maybe my info is bad or maybe plans will change 🤷♂️ Definitely don’t consider me a reliable source on this topic 🤣 If I do get some concrete info on this though, I’ll update.
I did email the organizers after the festival ended though, and I never heard back, so maybe not a good sign? Or maybe they’re just busy. Hard to say.
I’m pretty sure this is Bart, but it could also be Homer. What a Simpson was doing hiding in a Myths and Legends ice and snow display is not clear, but it was funny to find him! (not sure who snuck him in :/)
sneaky ice sculptors
When you find hidden jokes in a creation, you’re pretty much assured that the artists were having a good time. I found a couple of Easter eggs in the Zwolle display. I suspect there were more, but I was in there for a quite a while as it was, so I did the best I could!
I could see the ice bar nearby and I knew I was in Zwolle. However, I have no idea where the McDonald’s was and the sign wasn’t all that helpful here. Not that I was looking for the McDonald’s. But this sign kind of confused me. It might have been an inside joke, like the Easter eggs I talked about above 🤷♂️
I should’ve included the toothy-white pedestal she sits on in this picture of a Tooth Fairy piece! (from a scene by Marieke van der Meer and Rusian Korokov)
I wasn't always in on the joke
The language barrier at the festival was sometimes a problem for me. What I mean is, while it was easy to find people who spoke English, the placards in front of the sculptures were all in Dutch, with no English. That’s not a criticism; I don’t expect life to be tailored to me. But it did mean that I didn’t immediately snap to what I was supposed to be looking at.
For example, there was a Tooth Fairy sculpture and it would have been really nice if I could have gotten a better pic of her sitting on top of a tooth. I got a great picture of the sculpture; the tooth below, not so much. Had I known then that “Tandenfee” meant “Tooth Fairy,” it might have clicked in my head that the white pedestals that she was sitting on were teeth. I probably would have figured it out though if I wasn’t so focused on getting pics of everything.
Nearly the same thing happened with the Hans Brinker piece: I got a great picture of the young boy crouching in front of the small dike. But I didn’t really get the part where his finger was about to plug the dike until I saw some video I took later. On the other hand, I know that I caught a lot of things that non-ice sculptors wouldn’t catch, like in the Parvati piece. The sneaky Bart/Homer Simpson piece also was pretty obvious to me.
So I definitely missed a couple things that maybe Dutch speakers didn’t. To be fair though, there was a LOT to see and even though I’m used to the cold, after a while even I got tired of taking off my gloves to take pics and trying to make sure I got everything. (I wandered around in there much longer than the normal attendee, I’d say.)
in hindsight, since I was in the NETHERLANDS, you might have though that I’d be on the lookout for a boy with his finger plugging a dike. Nope, totally missed it until after the fact! Interestingly though, I’ve read that this is more of an American story, even though it’s set in Holland. (sculpture by Tautvilas Povilionis)
“Izanagi,” by Dmitry Klimenko. Izanami, his female counterpart, is nearby. Both pieces were simply amazing!
links and stuff
In case you missed it, definitely check out my newish Zwolle gallery!
You could also find photos and info related to the Zwolle display on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. ice sculpting secrets is also on TikTok, although videos there aren’t really tied to posts as much. You can comment on IG and fb as well as below. And if it won’t LET you comment below, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
2 Responses
Hi, I’m Thomas Brown. It’s really fantastic to see all work in this article. So many amazing artists in one space. I would just like to clarify I made the Parvati sculpture solo. Helena Bangert deserves credit for the gorgeous Ganesh figure she carved.
Hi Thomas, thanks for the clarification! I’ll fix the captions, etc. I did the best I could with the signage at the event. I was really glad I went. Such an awesome Parvati piece, and the chainsaw was hilarious! I don’t think I got a good photo of Ganesh, but I’ll go back and look. Thanks again!