Yesterday’s Snow (2003/04)

Yesterday’s Snow (2003/04)

Schnee von gestern (2003/04)

On January 31st 2003, a snowman was built outside of the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, and moved into the foyer of the main building. The snowman was placed inside a freezer, where it stayed for one year. Solar panels on a roof, which were visible from the foyer, provided the energy necessary to power the cooling system 24 hours a day. In this way, the snowman survived solely due to the rays of its natural enemy, the sun. On January 31st 2004, the snowman ‘celebrated’ its one-year anniversary. Two days later it was taken back to where it was originally built and melted away in just a few hours.
The title of this work – Yesterday’s Snow – is a wordplay which takes its meaning from a German idiom (Schnee von gestern) for something outdated, something ‘from yesterday’.

Das Projekt Yesterday’s Snow was enabled by the kind support of:
TFH Berlin (heute Beuth Hochschule für Technik)Gerold Weber SolartechnikLiebherr Lienz Schoenau AG (heute Schoenau all energy GmbH)Exide TechnologiesSteca ElektronikFlachglas Wernberg