Buy An Original Piece Of Polar Ice In Amsterdam
This week Amsterdam-based artists Coralie Vogelaar and Teun Castelein will launch their latest business called MyPolarIce in the Dutch capital. MyPolarIce gives people the opportunity to get themselves a unique piece of history. From 26 November to 5 December original pieces of polar ice will be sold at the temporary MyPolarIce store on the Museumplein (Museum Square) in Amsterdam.
Pieces of polar ice will be sold for € 24,95 each. Every piece is numbered and there will be 1,000 of them available. The ice is captured in a 9″ transparent capsule and packed in an EPS container together with an ownership certificate. After leaving the shop the ice is kept frozen by the packaging. The EPS container protects the ice from melting for approximately three hours. If you want to be sure to own an original piece of polar ice, you can make a reservation on the project’s website. For this project the artist have been traveling all the way to the North Pole to collect the ice themselves.
“Your piece of ice is extracted from the only remnant of the last ice age, the Greenlandic ice cap. It is created by many layers of pre-industrial snowfall, gradually converted into ice by the pressure of the overlying snow. Together with the local inhabitants – formally known as Inuïts – the ice has been carefully selected from the Ilulissat Ice Fjord. The Ice Fjord contains the icebergs that originate from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier. It is very likely that the iceberg that hit the Titanic is from this glacier. The Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is retraiting rapidly. About 15 meters in the last four years. Rising sea temperatures caused the floating part of the glacier to brake off. Furthering its recession, the glacier is carefully analized by scientist from all over the world.”
The idea behind the project is simple: “a piece of polar ice is a must have collector’s item from the last ice age. It is a unique relic, a once in a lifetime souvenir”. From a business point of view it’s even more simple: scarcity means business and gone is gone.
