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Two Singaporeans have been selected from over a hundred artists from around the world to sculpt one of the suites at the breathtaking Icehotel in Sweden.

This is the first time Singaporeans have been invited to sculpt and design for the iconic hotel in the 33 years since its inception.

Unique designs for each suite

The duo, who will head to Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, in end-November 2022, are Edmund Chan and Taitien Tan.

They were among the 24 artists from 10 countries chosen to be sculptors, out of 135 artists from 23 countries.

Other artists hail from countries such as Canada, U.S., Germany, and Japan. Chan and Tan are the only artists from Southeast Asia.

Every year, each pair of artists will be commissioned to hand carve unique designs out of snow and ice for an Icehotel Art Suite.

Each suite has a theme, and is "unique and has never been created before", according to Icehotel, and the rooms will subsequently be available for guests to stay in.

An Art Suite for two adults can cost around S$3,000 for three nights.

Here are some examples of previous Art Suites.

Art as both a hobby and a profession

Creating sculptures out of snow and ice might seem like an extremely niche and out-of-place hobby considering Singapore's tropical climate, but 33-year-old Chan told Mothership that he's been doing this for nearly 10 years.

Chan is part of The Snow Lions, a team of artists representing Singapore in international snow sculpture competitions.

The team, including Chan, has participated in the annual Sapporo International Snow Sculpture Competition in Hokkaido, Japan, since 2012.

The Snow Lions consist of various artists, designers and creatives. Chan himself has a day job as an art technician at Tanglin Trust School.

He shares that he has always been interested in art and sculpting, having studied Fine Art and majored in sculpture at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

"We learned to work with all sorts of materials and media like wood, clay, stone, bronze etc. I enjoy the hands-on, tactile approach of sculpting and I get a lot of satisfaction from creating and visualising forms in 3D."

He was first introduced to snow as an unconventional medium by two artists his NAFA lecturer recommended him to.

The two artists, Nelson Lim and Loh Tze Joo, offered Chan the opportunity to join them in a snow sculpture competition in 2012.

"That first taste of snow sculpting was all it took for me to fall in love with creating art with snow and ice," Chan said.

"[Snow and ice sculpting] evokes a sense of calmness. I love how something so still and cold can be sculpted into something dynamic and interesting. In a way it is like bringing a dream into reality."

36-year-old Tan is Chan's apprentice and joined Chan at the Sapporo competition for the first time in 2019.

In this iteration of the competition, Chan and Tan created a snow sculpture inspired by the grooves and whorls of a fingerprint.

Tan has a full-time job related to art — he works as a senior papermaker at STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery.

The Sapporo competition, however, was his first foray into snow sculpting.

The process

Creating a snow sculpture is no simple feat.

After conceptualising the sculpture and planning their workload, the pair will create a small 3D prototype to help them visualise the final sculpture more clearly.

Generally, for ice and snow sculpting, there are three main phases in the sculpting process.

The first phase involves chipping and cutting away parts of the ice block. As Chan describes, "material is removed until the desired form emerges".

This, he adds, is the most physically demanding stage of the process.

The second phase involves refining the cuts, angles and shapes to create more detail and improve the form of the sculpture. Finer tools are used during this stage depending on how detailed the sculpture is.

The last phase is when the team checks the final form of the sculpture and makes sure that the surfaces are even and clean.

For snow sculpting, work usually starts from top to bottom. Chan explains that this way, the snow "debris" will not damage any of the work at the bottom.

To give readers a sense of the size of these creations, each snow sculpture was sculpted from a 3m x 3m x 3m block of snow, and the teams took four days to complete it.

Considering tropical Singapore is devoid of snow, the overseas competitions are essentially opportunities for the sculptors to practice their craft.

New challenges

Both Chan and Tan have never actually worked with ice before.

Upon noticing the Icehotel's open call for designs back in February though, they decided to try their luck and submitted three designs along with their portfolio of snow sculptures.

It had seemed "like an interesting opportunity" to test their skills with a different medium.

Chan explains that snow and ice sculpting might be similar, but the approach, tools and techniques used can vary.

For example, manual tools such as a chisel and ice chipper are used for snow sculpting, whereas power tools such as a chainsaw and drill are used for ice sculpting.

Nevertheless, seasoned sculptors "may find their sculpting skills can be transferable from medium to medium", Chan added.

Additionally, the duo will be working with a much larger 'canvas' at the Icehotel than their typical sculptures, and in -30°C temperatures.

The suite will be four times larger in scale than a snow sculpture.

The lighting in the suite is another factor Chan and Tan will have to take into account.

"Since it is a room that guests will enter and sleep in, we need to consider the placement and colours of lighting in our suite to create the ambience that we want. It is different from lighting a sculpture for the aesthetic/visual experience."

"This is really surreal for us."

Chan describes being "excited and honoured" to be one of the first Singaporeans to be selected to sculpt for the Icehotel.

"This is really surreal for us. To stay at the Ice Hotel as a guest would already be quite an experience, but to be selected as the artists to sculpt one of the Art Suites is on a whole different level," he shared.

Tan said that as snow and ice do not occur naturally here, the pair are looking forward to "explore it further as a sculpting material".

However Chan said that they are unable to reveal too much at the moment as the Icehotel has yet to officially release all the Art Suite designs publicly, but "cannot wait to share it with everyone".

He did share some hints — the theme of the suite is called "Dreams of Pencils", and will be something "quirky and fun".

Let your imagination run wild.

Top photo courtesy of Edmund Chan