Markham turns to China for expert help in 2019 ice and snow sculpture festival
World famous Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival model for new Markham event set for February
Yorkregion.com
November 14, 2018
Tim Kelly
Visitors to Markham’s Civic Centre in February could be forgiven if they think they’ve come to the land of the ice and snow.
The city, in co-ordination with the city of Harbin in northeast China, is putting on its inaugural Markham Ice and Snow Festival, a 10-day extravaganza that kicks off Feb. 9 and features large ice sculptures.
The festival is the brainchild of Markham resident Debbie Yu, chair of the upcoming event and a native of Harbin, China. The Markham festival is based on the world-famous Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, a massive exhibition that is the annual centrepiece tourism attraction for the northeast Chinese city of 10 million.
Yu, who has lived in Markham for 20 years, got the idea for a local event when she went back to Harbin last year to check out the festival, and believed it would be possible to have a smaller-scale event here with the help of some of Harbin’s finest ice and snow sculptors.
“I thought it would be very nice to connect Harbin and Markham as winter cities. I hope they can be sister cities,” said Yu, who believes “a lot of people from Harbin now live in Markham.”
Yu, who was a young art student in China, graduated from art school there and then graduated from the University of Toronto as a landscape architect a few decades ago. She has several friends who work at the famed Harbin Ice Sculpture and Expo and wanted to develop her own Canadian connection with it.
She went there last January with a couple of Chinese-Canadian art students and developed the idea, at that time, of connecting Harbin and Markham. That’s when this year’s upcoming festival in Markham germinated.
It will take a lot of effort to make it happen, however. To start with, organizers, who include event co-ordinators David Zhang and Leon Li, operations manager Zoe Li and art program managers and Markham natives Shanta Sundarason and Steve Lusk, will need to raise $300,000 to put on the festival.
That means an intense fundraising and sponsorship effort is needed, including at least $100,000 to bring in the ice needed for sculpting the high-quality figures.
Sundarason said she was convinced to get involved with the project after seeing some of Harbin’s ice sculptures in her native Singapore, when they were flown in and shown in an air-conditioned tent.
“It was just amazing they brought the ice sculptures to Singapore,” she said.
“We will need help from the community,” she added.
Sundarason said the sculptures people will see in Markham will include, “contemporary art pieces, Indigenous structures --we don’t want to keep the communities separated.”
Indeed, among the goals of the event is to "exhibit the local cultures of Markham and Harbin, and to promote friendship and future co-operation between the two winter cities and communities.”
Another goal is “to establish through this program a link between Markham and Harbin.”
Finally, organizers would like to offer two students the chance to participate in the Harbin Youth International Ice Sculpture Competition at the Harbin Ice Lantern Expo Center in China.
It takes place Jan. 4 to 6, 2019. Students must be 16 to 23, apply by Dec. 10 (with portfolio). The application fee is $300, and the training fee is $350 (during the winter break). The other fee will be the return-flight ticket to Harbin, China. Accommodation fees in Harbin are covered by the Harbin Ice Lantern Expo Center. To apply, email Diane Yu at diane@ypluss.com.
