A GIANT block of ice carved from the Greenland tundra will arrive at Tatton Park tomorrow.

Artist Neville Gabie harvested the piece two months ago and has transported it by boat from Greenland via Norway.

It will be taken from the Port of Liverpool to the Cheshire stately home by truck, ready to be used for the Tatton Park Biennial art festival.

The two-ton block of ice will be housed in a glass structure in the hall’s gardens and kept frozen using solar power and pond water throughout the five-month run of the contemporary art event from May to September.

Gabie hopes his work will “provoke a whole range of responses and best of all, generate debate”.

He says: “For me, the work is full of contradictions. It uses the sun to keep the ice cold, but it also raises questions about the ethics of moving things around the world when there is increasing concern about our global footprint.

“I hope it will make people curious enough to want to find out more about Greenland and to ask questions about their own immediate environment.”

Born in Johannesburg, Gabie studied sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London and has since exhibited with Tate Liverpool and Tate Modern.

The relocation of materials has been central to his artistic practice for a number of years.

Two years ago, he brought a granite kerbstone from China to Bristol via truck, train and ferry.

In recent months, he has been based at Halley research station in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey as part of the artists and writers programme, where he has created work based around the ideas of excavating and re-locating ice.

He has documented the process of extracting and transporting the piece of ice in his blog on the Tatton Park Biennial website.

He adds: “For me, making a piece of work is about exploration.

“It is about starting with an idea and following it.

“The process, the people you meet through the work, the understanding you gain of different contexts is the reward.”

The introduction of foreign items to an English stately garden has a long history.

Many have been populated with species brought back from foreign lands by Victorian plant-hunters and have been cared for in the climatically controlled environment of glass houses, as Gabie’s ice will be.

The artist was inspired by the contrasting vision of the lush, green landscape of Tatton’s gardens and the sheer, solid block of ice.

Biennial curator Danielle Arnaud says: “Neville’s work for the Biennial is a unique artistic vision that transcends boundaries of art, science and current social and political debate.

“It is fully in keeping with our ambitions to work as a creative laboratory. We hope audiences will take it to their heart.”

FOR further details on the event and to watch Neville Gabie’s blog posts from Greenland, visit www.tattonparkbiennial.org