This Snowbound Art Festival Is Minnesota’s Answer to Burning Man

The annual Art Shanty Projects is a playful “city on ice” installation with a hyper-local twist (and lots of hot cocoa).

This Snowbound Art Festival Is Minnesota’s Answer to Burning Man

Courtesy of Art Shanty Projects

Travelers on the hunt for unique art in unusual settings should consider drifting northward this month, when Minnesota welcomes the quirky Art Shanty Projects, a wintertime answer to Nevada’s annual creative community experiment, Burning Man.

The Art Shanty Projects brings together a who’s who of Minnesota artists to design, build, and decorate a temporary “city on ice” atop frozen Lake Harriet, just 15 minutes from downtown Minneapolis. The unconventional art event celebrates the North Star State’s world-famous winters: Visitors can roam the Shanty Village, explore its distinctive, ice-fishing cabin–inspired structures, and participate in a range of interactive art experiences (including something called the Tiny ArtCar and ArtBike Parade on Ice).

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Photo by Sharyn Morrow/Flickr

Free to the public, the Art Shanty Projects kicks off on Saturday, January 20. It runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays through February 11. (It neatly coincides with the annual Lake Harriet Kite Festival on January 27 and Super Bowl LII, which takes place at the Twin Cities’ U.S. Bank Stadium on February 4.) Organizers of the Art Shanty Projects promise the show will go on—“rain, sleet, snow, or blizzard.” Because Minnesota.

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