A snow sculpture team of India led by a young Kashmiri artist has been selected for the second consecutive year for Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championship 2018 to be held in United States.
The snow sculpture team ‘Callisto’ was selected from India for the first time in 2017 for the international snow sculpture championship which is being held annually in US. The team consists of four artists Zahoor Din Lone, Sunil Kushwaha, Ravi Prakash, Mridul Kumar Upadhyay wins spirit award last year.
This year the team led by Kashmiri Artist Zahoor Din Lone has been selected again. However this year the team has replaced Mridul Kumar Upadhyay with another Kashmiri artist Irfan Lateef Mir for the championship.
The championship is being organized by the International Snow Sculpture Organizing Committee (ISSCOC) form last 28 years in Breckenridge, Colorado, US. This is the first ever snow sculpture team from India to represent team India in any International snow sculpture championship.
Zahoor Din Lone who hails from a small village of Pattan Singhpora in north Kashmir has pursued Masters in Fine arts from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi after completing his Bachelors in Fine arts from University of Kashmir.
Zahoor Din Lone will be leading an Indian four member team to United States for this Snow Sculpture Championship. Before participating in US based championship in 2017, Zahoor has earlier participated and gained experience of snow sculpture from ‘Snow Fiesta-2014’, organized by the Eplanner event management and J&K Tourism in Gulmarag.
“It was due to the ‘Snow Fiesta’ camp that I got an international opportunity and an opportunity to lead team India at international platform in United States,” he thanks to Eplanner.
“I submitted work samples of the sculpture camp in which i participated in 2014. That camp really helped me to grab this opportunity. And we were selected for US championship in 2017. This year we again applied and got selected. In valley we have enough talent but lack platform to explore”, he said.
However, due to callous attitude of state government last year, he said, “We didn’t receive any support or logistic help. We managed out tools, uniform and other miscellaneous expenditures ourselves.”
The ISSCOC receives hundreds of fantastic submissions across the world to the event among just sixteen teams are chosen. Interestingly this year for the first time a team from India has been chosen from among these fine submissions for the world class snow event at Breckenridge in US.
Irfan Lateef Mir of Lolab area of Kupwara district, another young sculpture artist from valley has been included in the team by Zahoor for this year’s championship. Mir is an Artist who explores different mediums and does most of his works in Metal wire.
Sunil Kushwaha, a young national sculpture artist has his sculptures based on perfectly combined concepts of social issues, criticism and aestheticism. He belongs to a rural village of Singrauli, one of Madhya Pradesh’s Maoist-hit districts. He says, Art kept him engaged during unrest situations. In his works, repetition and rhythm implies dynamic, complex narratives, at times playful or urgent. His fine sculptures are ‘Stages of Desire (Medium: black stone-glass)’ and ‘Voyage’ (Medium: stone-metal sculpture).Sunil earned a Master’s of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Ravi Prakash, a young national sculpture artist describes his artwork as an expressive representation of his social experience. Ravi belongs to a very backward region of Bihar and he took art as the medium of social and economic development. The rawness can be seen in his work. He can work in many other materials but prefers to work in metal wire; an unconventional, flexible and long lasting material. Weaving and molding the wire to give a physical form shows his hard work. His fine sculptures include ‘Milkman’, ‘Mother Nature in Pain’ and ‘Soulmate’ (the other half). He is a double Gold Medalist, both in Bachelors of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from Allahabad University and Masters of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
These artists said that India gets snow every year but they don’t find culture, recognition and appreciation for snow sculpting in India, unlike many countries of the world. They said they as a team, hope to create entirely a new culture of youth engagement in snow art.
However, in its 28th year, the Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Championships will bring together 16 teams representing 12 countries from around the world to present intricate works of snow art. In the championship, Four-person teams will carve 20-ton, 12-foot-tall blocks of snow without the use of power tools, internal support structures, or colorants – just the ingenuity of the sculptors and a medium that lends itself, if only temporarily, to the persuasion of hand tools.
Snow artists from around the world will compete January 22-28, 2018 in Breckenridge at the International Snow Sculpture Championships. Sculptures, which remain on display through February start as 12-foot-tall, 20+ ton blocks of snow. Teams from all over the world will compete and using only hand tools, artists achieve finished pieces across five days (65 hours) of sculpting in this one of a kind event.(PTK)
