Team

WE ARE RAGNARØK

ANDBERG VASKIMO MARKKULA MANNINEN

Snow sculpting team Ragnarøk was born at the year 2009, in a small concrete coloured city called Kouvola. The team was founded by three sculptors: Janne Andberg, Matti Vaskimo, and Leevi Markkula. Our debut work was sculpted in the Finnish snow sculpting championship during the same year. The first sculpture took part in the action-series of the competition, but after that we have concentrated only on the art-series.

The year 2010 saw a huge leap in the quality of our work. Snow as a material got more familiar to us and also our tools got improved alot. Also we found the perfect theme for our future sculptures: the Scandinavian mythology. We realized that it holds a vast amount of topics and stories for us to make sculptures from. Also the team name Ragnarøk is a reference to a rather significant part of the Norwegian mythology. 

We prepared carefully to upcoming national contest on 2011. After numerous ideas and sketches we founded a beautiful idea backed up by a strong conceited story. 

Experience had awarded us with haste, witch gave us time to concentrate more on the finishing touches and the surface work. This paid off well; team Ragnarøk was awarded with the Finnish snow sculpting championship gold medal!

This was the first real merit of our team and that merit tooked us as far as Japan, to take part in the 63rd Sapporo International Snow Festival 2012.

But first, we needed to fund our journey. We took a full advantage of our success by promoting, getting sponsorships, giving lessons, and carving customer works.

 

At Sapporo, we performed as Team Finland, accompanied by 15 national teams allover the world.

This was a great chance to see how the worlds finest sculptors work, and also make international contacts for the future events.

After our epic journey in Japan 2012, we noticed how much time and effort professional snow sculpting really takes. This winter we did'nt even participated national finals and our sculptors focused on their personal duties.

 

At the end of year 2012, we reinforced our team with a new member; Arto Manninen. This was but necessary, also quite allright. (aivan hyvä)
Our renewed strength was tested at national championships 2013, were we did what we must.

After the contest Ragnarøk gave birth to two snowcastles at southern Finland. These massive works demanded very different methods than we have used to; it was but sculpting, also construction work and mold building.

2014 we won the national championships for the second time, and worked on a smaller competition at Southern-Finland.

2015 Ragnarøk executed an epic Japan tour. Our journey awarded us with new friends, experiences, and a second place in the most legendary snow event at Sapporo snowfestival. Domo arigato! 

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Now, as the snow turns to water Ragnarøk withdraws to limbo.
We'll be back when the Everwinter chooses to summon us again.

Ragnarøk will never rest; Ragnarøk awaits       March -15.