PROJECT NAME: Snowballs in Summer
DATE: 1998

OUTLINE:

Design & Art Direction of a website to provide information about Andy Goldsworthy's 'Snowballs in Summer' project. The website was daily updated with photographs of the project, live web-cams and comments from members of the public.

** SNOWBALLS IN SUMMER WEBSITE **

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Andy Goldsworthy is one of the UK's best-known artists. His extraordinary sculptures are made from natural materials with the minimum of technological intervention; if a work can be made by hand then it will be. Normally situated outdoors, often in rugged and inaccessible terrain, the pieces are left to be gradually eroded by wind, rain and the heat of the sun. The only long-term records of Goldsworthy's major sculptures are the images that the artist produces documenting the works' creation and erosion.

'Snowballs in Summer' Happened on 21 June: Midsummer's Day. Thirteen giant snowballs were placed on the streets of London, left to melt in the heat of the longest day. As they disappeared they left behind the materials that Andy Goldsworthy packed into the snow sculptures: sheep's wool, crow feathers, chestnut seeds, ash seeds, Scots pine cones, elderberries, barley, metal, barbed wire, branches, chalk, pebbles and highland cow hair.

Goldsworthy chose some very public locations for the snowballs near Barbican and Moorgate underground stations in London; these confronted thousands of workers on their way to the City. Other snowballs were hidden in locations to be discovered by chance. Some of the materials within the snowballs resonated with their locations: for example the ones which contained Highland cow hair and sheep's wool were sited near Smithfield Market, drawing a relationship between the place of the snowballs' construction - near Goldsworthy's home in Scotland - and the oldest meat market in London.

The project was time-based, with the snowballs expected to take between three and five days to melt. Another important factor in the work was the interaction with the public, as surprised Londoners encounter the frozen sculptures.

VISUALS: