BoomArtwork's Solar Weekend

 

The final  piece

BoomArtwork's lettering

 Eric at work

Boom Artwork aka Eric Van Den Boom recently participated in a music and arts festival entitled Solar Weekend 2013. Working alongside Maarten Berkers, Eric created an installation consisting of an interactive mural. Eric says "This year's theme was 'experiment'......(the installation) allowed festival visitors to create their own fantastical creatures by rotating three circular boards with different body parts illustrated on them. Visitors could place their heads through the holes in the mural, making a perfect photo opportunity". Eric used his skills to complete the lettering on either side, whilst Maarten created the central illustration for this theatrical piece.

Sea of Jelly

Photo from the BBC website

Bompas and Parr have achieved something truly remarkable, last week saw the food architects 'floating' Brunel's ss Great Britain on a sea of jelly! As part of a cultural festival the ship which is moored in Bristol is one of ten sites being 'matched' with contemporary artists for the 'Museums at Night' season. Bompas and Parr's 'sea' creation involved making and 'pushing' 55,000 litres of neon green jelly around the ship, which is lit from below once the sun has gone down. Read more here.

Dover Street Market Installation

Rohan Eason is the man behind this installation at Dover Street Market, for Comme Des Garcon; the second launch of the book 'Anna and the Juniper Dog'.  Four of Rohan's originals from the book hang against the space which is covered in drawn threads and needles. Rohan says "(It's) quite a good coo for the book, and the installation should be making its way to the new Japanese store this year." Running til 16th March, there's still time to see it if you're local; Dover Street market 17-18 Dover Street, London W1S 4LT.

Bompas and Parr on Selfridges' Roof

Our very creative jelly team Bompas and Parr are making news, news from the roof of Selfridges at that.  The team have completed an installation on Selfridges’ roof  which will see it turned into a boating lake. Here an extract from Design Week by Tom Banks:

"In a link up with the Oxford Street retailer and sweetener brand Truvia - which harvests its product from the South American Stevia plant - a ‘Voyage of Discovery’ has been forged with help from Studio Too Good.

Visitors can expect a vertiginous boating lake which leads to a bar serving tea, coffee and alcohol, all laced with this mysterious Truvia substance.

Also expect waterfalls, ship-wrecks and a field of thousands of Stevia plants. It’s a wonderfully conceived conceit and we’re all for it but the proof, like all Bompas and Parr designs, will be in the pudding.

For anyone not familiar with Bompas and Parr’s work, much of it to date has involved jelly architecture using rapid prototyping for clients including Lord Foster and Heston Blumenthal.

The slightly mind-bending rooftop journey references ‘the whole supply chain from field to table,’ says Bompas, who explains research by Sheffield University found ‘design environments enhance flavour experience.’

According to Bompas the piece will have a ‘historical resonance’ with the space ‘as they used to have a crazy golf course and rifle range up there.’

Voyage of Discovery will be installed from 21 - 24 July at Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street, W1A"

Chocolate Waterfall

If you are finding yourself near Whiteley's Shopping centre this week, please go and see one spectacular installation created by Bompas and Parr, sets painted by Emma Rios:

Bompas & Parr to open Chocolate Waterfall at Whiteleys Shopping Centre

"Bompas & Parr is building a Chocolate Waterfall at Whiteleys Shopping Centre open between 22 -25 April. Visitors don a protective suit and step through a chocolate waterfall to visit a chamber flooded with five tonnes of chocolate.  They will then blend and bottle a chocolate elixir in the installation’s processing unit.

This April is the 40^th Anniversary of the original film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Bompas & Parr honours Roald Dahl’s creativity by constructing a real Chocolate Waterfall that flows at a rate of 12,000 litres an hour. The waterfall serves to keep the chocolate fully mixed.

The Chocolate Waterfall pulls together Bompas & Parr’s favourite beans from around the world (Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean) to create its first house blend. Dr Rachel Edwards-Stuart, food technologist and flavour expert helped develop the recipe. The five tonne mixture is chocolatey with hints of plum, red wine and earth.

After visiting the Chocolate Waterfall people will be given the chance to bottle and take away their own chocolate elixir – a concentrated chocolate cordial. Visitors customize the chocolate elixir by blending flavours like lavender, jasmine or pine by hand.

The temporary installation will appeal to all ages. It will excite children’s imaginations. Adults will be intrigued by the food on an architectural scale, excellent design, unusual flavours and encouraged to release their inner child.

Whiteleys Shopping Centre is a magical location with an illustrious history. It was built by William Whiteley as an imposing store for the public to provide everything from ‘a pin to an elephant’. It became known as the ‘universal provider’. At its peak it was the height of luxury with a golf-course on the roof and a theatre..."

Emma Rios in Remastered

Emma Rios has collaborated with Dan Price to exhibit in Remastered, an exhibition which has taken place at 1 Marylebone over the weekend.

"The Remastered project considers some of the most recognised works throughout art history, inviting thirteen contemporary artists and designers to reinterpret them, with technology at the core. Emma Rios and Dan Price take the most intriguing elements of Manet’s A Bar at the Folie-Bergere, the ambiguous perspective and the female subject, to create an interactive 18th century kaleidoscopic den. Enter and become mesmerised by throbbing reflections, magnifying the sinister side of Manet’s  famously controversial depiction of modern life." 

It is unfortunately now closed to the public, have a look here for more pictures and moving image.

Emma Rios's Scrapbook

This week leading illustrator Emma Rios takes us behind the scenes to reveal what inspires her to create her amazingly popular work.

Emma Rios's Scrapbook

London Fashion Week Sugar Cave and Liberty Prints

Emma Rios has been ever so busy! Two major commissions have recently been completed, the first of which is the "Sugar Cave" created for London Fashion Week. Emma produced a Jules Verne adventure using sugar as an architectural scale alongside art directors Bompas and Parr. Silver Spoon sugar was used to build a crystal cave that imagined the visitor had been shrunk to the size of a standard grain of table sugar!

Emma has also designed a range of prints for Liberty inspired by London. She says: "...I love Liberty and London so this was even more of an honour and a great treat to work on, even more so when I found out my designs were going on everything from tea pots to silk scarves …I even heard someone say socks! These prints include a map of London, a gentleman pigeon and a theatrical paper-cut of a haunting Thames..." This image shows the map which will be in Liberty from November.

Kensington Palace Gardens

Be sure to keep your eyes to the skies this summer when walking through the gardens of Kensington Palace so you don’t miss these astounding creations by Emma Rios.
This is another feather in the hat of creative mastermind Emma who designed these metal silhouetted archways throughout the Sunken Garden, where they will remain for 2 years. Encompassing some ideas and designs from a group of teenagers, the arches tell a story of the princesses who have lived within the palace walls. Emma was honoured to have her work as part of the show.