Victorious Mongolian Ice Sculptor

In the previous post we wrote about the Mongolian ice sculptors competing at Korkeasaari Zoo in the Helsinki archipelago. The winner of the individual competition was announced today, and he is also Mongolian! Lkhagvadorj Dorjsuren won the first prize with his intricately carved work "The Lunch", depicting the competition's maritime and environmentally conscious theme through the shape of a seagull eating garbage - a prosaic subject rendered alarmingly beautiful and calling our attention to the effects of pollution. The jury especially praised the shapes of the waves at the base of the sculpture. The competition will continue next weekend, 9.-10.2.2013.

More photos and video clips: Korkeasaari Zoo media gallery

Mongolian Ice Sculptors in Finland

The Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki, located on an island within the city archipelago, currently celebrates an international ice sculpting festival, Art Meets Ice 2013. Many of the participants are from Mongolia. Above, Bazarsad Bayarsaikhan and Dorjnamil Baatar work on their individual projects in the "Life on the Baltic Sea" competition, and they will also compete against each other and the other participants in teams of two in the tandem competition "My Sea". There's a promotional video on the Korkeasaari Zoo's website.

It will be exciting to see what maritime subjects the Mongolian artists will tackle. As a serendipitous coincidence, a Przewalski's horse at the zoo has foaled during their visit. Przewalski's horse (or Dzungarian horse) is an endangered subspecies of wild horse from the Central Asian steppes. Once it was extinct in Mongolia, but it has been reintroduced into nature reserves in the country. It is considered the last truly wild horse, others (like the Mustangs of North America) being feral varieties of the domesticated horse.

Perhaps the birth of the foal, so laden with symbolism, will inspire the artists even more in this competition? According to the Finnish national broadcasting service YLE, the artists were delighted by the news, and believe that it's a filly, although the zoo has not published any details yet... (video of the furry little foal here) (news in Finnish)

Photo source: Korkeasaari Zoo media gallery