Eelko Moorer |
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12:09 /
24.01.2008
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Like an haute couture artisan, Eelko Moorer constructs designs that are theatrically conceptual and exquisitely handmade, yet from which the commercial and mass-produced can be derived. With the site-specific installation ‘In the Jungle Groove’, Moorer offers a literal interpretation of this analogy through a surreal, jungle-inspired setting laced with viable objects, all of his own design. Born in the Netherlands in 1975, Moorer studied 3D design and shoemaking before setting up his own studio. In 2003, the year he was nominated for the Rotterdam Design Prize, Moorer enrolled on the Royal College of Art’s Design Products masters degree and has lived in London ever since. Known for subverting conventional expectations and behavioural patterns through a series of darkly suggestive and often zoomorphic objects, Moorer’s designs include a bearskin rug made of rubber 'fur', shoes with integral hooks for commuters to suspend themselves upside down from the handrails |
of overcrowded commuter carriages, like meat being transported to market, or a suicide bird perch which attaches to the outer railings of a balcony allowing the person to sit and contemplate their next movement. This interaction between performance and product allows Moorer to navigate the hauntingly fine line between comfort and discomfort – between heightened states of exhilaration and anxiety – through design. Jungle Groove further exploits the anthropological and psychological as the user precariously and perilously swings through the vines from object to object, choosing their movements with care so as not to fall. For Moorer, the structure offers an antidote to the white cube formula of a gallery or domestic environment while playing with exaggerated notions of domesticity through the objects. |
