Defiant Gardens is an ongoing project working with artists, landscape historians, landscape architects, writers, curators and city planners to develop public art projects that inspire the community.

Winter Wonderland: A Defiant Garden by Stevie Famulari, with other juried artists

(Unfortunately, this event has been cancelled due to a lack of snow.)

Ice Festival on Friday, February 3, just outside the Memorial Student Union at North Dakota State University. You’ll see giant snow sculptures built by local teams-and one international team-that go far beyond the typical snowman or snow fort. The eight snow sculptures will create a magical Winter Wonderland, lit by luminarias for the Fire and Ice Festival on Friday, February 3, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. Grab a cup of hot cider or cocoa, enjoy a bonfire, and marvel at these glowing, large-scale creations.

Winter Wonderland is Stevie Famulari’s proposal in the Museum’s ongoing public art series, Defiant Gardens for Fargo-Moorhead. A multisensory artist and assistant professor of landscape architecture at NDSU, Famulari decided to create a participatory art project that would defy the isolation of winter and give our community a reason to get together outside around art and fun. Having created snow sculptures for Winnipeg’s Festival du Voyageurs, Famulari developed Winter Wonderland as a snow sculpture competition, working in collaboration with Esther Hockett at the Memorial Union Gallery at NDSU.

A jury selected eight project proposals from the 16 entries. The judges were NDSU professors David Swenson (art) and Regin Schwaen (architecture), PAM director Colleen Sheehy, and two snow sculpture veterans from Winnipeg, Gary Tessier and Madeleine Vrignon. The project proposals will be on display at the Museum January 23 – February 5.

Proposals were judged on originality, form, context, spatial dimensions, use of medium of snow, and feasibility of construction. First place was awarded to the team of Darius Montazemi, Kelsi Mueller, and Nathan Stottler for Tradition Fails; second place goes to Drew Holmgren, Collin Johnson, and Tali Johnson for Lucent Gale.

Co-sponsored by Plains Art Museum

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