Take A Walk On The Wild Side This Year – With Some of The Coolest Eco-Art Destinations in the World for Travelers and Artists Alike!

If you want an authentic travel experience filled with novel art ideas, products, resources, and opportunities that raises your environmental and cultural awareness to a heightened level of thinking and expressiveness – Take a Walk on the Wild Side This Year! – and Check Out Anyone of These Cool Eco-Art Destinations – and Who Knows You May Find An Eco-Inspiration of Your Own Making!

1-Cancun’s Underwater Art Museum– Just off Mexico’s eastern coastline in the waters surrounding Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Punta Nizuc lies the world’s largest underwater sculpture park – a work-in-progress by British artist Jason de Caires Taylor – who is creating a submerged art gallery made of a series of specialized cement sculptures i.e. ‘The Collector’, ‘The Silent Evolution’, ‘The Archive of Lost Dreams’, ‘The Gardener of Hope’ and ‘Man on Fire’ that have been designed to form artificial reef structures, encourage coral growth, attract marine life (as well as scuba divers and snorkelers), and raise awareness about ocean health. Check out his www.underwatersculpture.com.

2-Western Canada’s Thunderbird Park & The Royal British Columbia Museum – Located side-by-side inside the harbor area of downtown Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada are some of the greatest First Nation’s totem poles ever collected and preserved. These heraldic tall red cedar poles carved with aboriginal family crests and ancestral supernatural beings are the eco-art symbols of a clan’s lineage from a particular array of animals. Other totem poles recount notable legends or events in the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. A number of contemporary totem poles designed, carved, and painted by well-known artists of today are also displayed here. Check out www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/.

3- Sweden’s ICEHOTEL and Sculpture Park – Located in the village of Jukkasjarvi on the shore of the Torne River, right next to the town of Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden in the province of Lapland which sits way above the arctic circle — the artistic ice creations within this hotel and the natural wilderness around it together with the Magnetite-carved sculptures surrounding the hotel make this an eco-art destination like no other. The ice hotel rooms and its famous ice bar are open to guests by mid-December and the ice church and main hall are completed by Christmas. Artists are invited each summer to create something new for the sculpture park of magnetite (iron ore is an abundant local resource) and artists and architects alike are invited each winter under the direction of the ICEHOTEL Art & Design Group to create next year’s version of the ICEHOTEL. This winter season of 2011-2012 there will be 47 rooms in total including 16 Art Suites, 20 Ice Rooms, and 8 Snow Rooms. This hotel location also makes it a good place for skiing, dog sledding, and observing the northern lights. Check out www.icehotel.com.

4-Newfoundland’s Fogo Island Art-In-Residency Program – Situated up in Eastern Canada, Located off the northeastern coastline of Newfoundland and Centered around old fishing cabins that have been converted into art studios – lies the Fogo Islands where visual artists, filmmakers, writers, artists, musicians, curators, and thinkers from around the world are now being invited to come “to create a world-renowned destination for artistic, cultural, ecological and culinary pursuits” – “a rural renaissance” model – within this endangered rugged community of 2700 people. Inspired in part by Zita Cobb, President of the Shorefast Foundation, and in keeping with the islander’s unique cultural and natural resources, the goal is to make Fogo Island (and the Change Islands) a leading “geotourism” destination and by so doing develop an alternative sustainable economy that will support community innovation and cultural resilience. Already being built is a boutique hotel, an eco-art gallery, and a locavore-focused restaurant. Check out www.shorefast.org/ and www.artscorpfogoisland.ca/.

5-Michigan’s Rabbit Island Eco-Art-In-Residency Project – Located three miles off the northern shore of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula on the edge of Lake Superior lies an uninhabited 91-acre island recently purchased by a New York City-based physician named Rob Gorski who together with London-based Andrew Ranville, the Principal Artist-in-Residence, and ‘The Keweenaw Land Trust’, plan to turn this deserted place into a sustainable artist residency – “a chance to creatively explore ideas related to the absence of civilization in a well-preserved microcosm”. Plans have already been made for buildings using the island’s own stone and wood including a sauna, a treehouse studio, and an amphitheater made of fallen sugar maples. For more information, check out www.rabbit-island.org.

6-Denmark’s Tranekaer Int’l Centre for Art and Nature (TICKON) – Located within the magnificent park grounds of Tranekaer Castle, a 13th century fortress on the Danish island of Langeland – is an outdoor gallery of environmental sculptures that is continually evolving – animated by the wondrous landscape of this 60 acres castle park. Artists featured include Chris Drury, Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash, Jorn Ronnau, Alan Sonfist, Herman de Vries, Nils-Udo, Hermann Prigann, Marc Barbarit & Gilles Bruni, Patrick Dougherty, and Guiliano Mauri. For more information, check out www.langeland.dk or contact – mail@alfiobonanno.dk.

7-New Zealand’s Connells Bay Sculpture Park – Located at the south-eastern end of Waiheke Island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf, a luxurious rental beachfront cottage is quietly nestled in amongst 60 acres of rolling farmland and unique New Zealand sculptures “where art and nature are united to create special spaces for site specific sculpture”. Tours are given by appointment only which features some of New Zealand’s best artists including Graham Bennett, Chris Booth, Phil Dadson, Neil Dawson, Paul Dibble, Kon Dimopoulos, Fatu Feu’u, Regan Gentry, Christine Hellyar, Virginia King, Gregor Kregar, Barry Lett, David McCracken, Cathryn Monro, Peter Nicholls, Julia Oram, Phil Price, Bob Stewart, Richard Thompson, Jeff Thomson and Denis O’Connor. This collaboration of artist and environment grows each year with new temporary sculpture installations and three new photographic exhibitions displayed at the park every other year. For more information, check out www.connellsbay.co.nz.

8-South Korea’s Mt. Yeonmisan Nature Art Park – Ever since 2004, the “Yatoo”, the Korean Nature Art Association hosts a biennial international nature art exhibition around Gongju city of Chungnam Province in South Korea – known as the ‘Geumgang Nature Art Biennale’. For three weeks artists from all over the world live together and create their nature art works at Mr. Yeonmisan Nature Park. Their works are open to the public thereafter and constantly change based upon their life cycle. During the ‘pre-Biennale’ period of 2009 alone, more than 200 pieces from 135 countries were submitted for consideration by the Organizing Committee for the 2010 Geumgang Nature Art Biennale. The final selection was made using a strict screening process, whereby the submissions were whittled down to 20 Korean artists and 17 foreign artists from 15 nations. Food, accommodations, as well as transportation costs were provided by the biennale organizers. The next biennale is due to take place this year between July 25th and August 17th and the theme this year will be “Nature, Human Being, and Sound”. The entire Nature Art Park will be open for viewing on August 19, 2012. For more info, check out www.natureartbiennale.org/.

Are you Ready Now for Your Next Eco-Art Traveling Vacation?