A team of local artists is set to impress at the Sapporo Snow Festival in Hokkaido Japan.
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Woollomia artist Randall Sinnamon, Scott Sheehan and Scott Bowman are currently representing Australia in the 43rd International Snow Sculpture Contest.
The Sapporo Snow Festival, is one of Japan's largest winter events with more than two million people visiting Sapporo to see 250 snow and ice sculptures that line “Odori Park,” the heart of Sapporo.
For nine days this February the team will work to create a sculpture purely out of a 3m x 3m block of compressed snow, under extreme weather conditions with heavy snowfalls up to 30cm a day and average temperature of -5°C to -20°C degrees.
The 2016 Snow Sculpture Australian team design incorporates a native animal and the human consequences from the environment we have created.
Frog-o-zilla will feature the rare endangered Australian “Green and Golden Bell Frog” and will represent the frog’s revenge on humans for overtaking nature, clearing habitats and developing highways.
The 67th Sapporo Snow Festival started in 1950, with only six snow statues made by local high school students.
It attracted fifty thousand visitors and soon became a major winter event of Sapporo. Australians participated in the very first International Snow Sculpture Contest back in 1974 at the Sapporo.
This year’s team will continue the relationship established 42 years ago with this cultural exchange between Japan and Australia.
The 2016 Australian team will compete against 11 teams from around the world; Korea, Finland, Hawaii, Indonesia, Latvia, Macao, Malaysia, Poland, Portland (USA), Singapore and Thailand.