New at the White Water Gallery in North Bay, ON

^{A Spectrum of Interconnected Cooperation, David Chops, 2025}

WWG would like to thank our co-presenters, the Near North Mobile Media Lab and Aanmitaagzi, the participating artists, and everyone who came out to the Ice Follies 2025 festival, for making it a resounding success! The outdoor festival of contemporary installation art ran from February 7 to 21 on frozen Lake Nipissing and attracted thousands of viewers.

This year, WWG presented artist David Chops and his large-scale interactive installation A Spectrum of Interconnected Cooperation (pictured above). Visitors were invited to engage with the piece by taking a ribbon – available in all the colours of the rainbow to represent the full spectrum of light and life, celebrating the diverse ways people love and connect with one another – and tying it to a rope hanging between two 11-foot high constructed trees, symbolizing their connection to the art and the collective human experience. The installation aimed to create an immersive, participatory experience that encourages reflection on humanity’s role in the world and the importance of cooperation in addressing the ongoing climate crisis.

Other artists and collectives exhibiting work included Aanmitaagzi, Andrew Ackerman with Nipissing University Fine Arts students Ross Kozuskanich and Ellie Laberge, Anyse Ducharme, Nico Glaude, and Studio Nude Beach.

More information about Ice Follies 2025 can be found at icefollies.ca but, more than that, the art and artists of the festival can be viewed in our latest episode of Hyper Creative, White Water Gallery’s YouTube video series hosted by Executive Director Alex Maeve Campbell, which will take you from installation to opening night to aftermath and beyond. Check out Episode 3 of Hyper Creative, Ice Follies 2025, here!

Are you ready to get wild? WWG presents a new episode of Hyper Creative, our new YouTube video series on art, artists, and arts professionals. In this instalment, Executive Director and host Alex Maeve Campbell delves into the world of Wild Waysides: Queer Ecologies and the New Natural, running at the gallery space from January 11 to March 15, 2025.

This episode features behind the scenes dialogues with curators James Fowler and Pearl Van Geest, and on the (reception) scene interviews with artists Francisco Alvarez, Schem Rogerson Bader, Atlas Gifford, John Rubino, and Cai Sepulis. Get the inside information on their art, their experience with the Queer Up North Residency in Temagami, ON, in August 2024, their wildest art experiences, and more.

Join us on our YouTube channel to follow the Hyper Creative series as we open the door to previously unseen areas of artist-run culture.