Tape Philadelphia: Enter the Cocoon
With our headquarters residing just outside of Philadelphia in Moorestown, NJ, we were so excited to hear about the installation of a new sculpture made from… You guessed it… Tape!
Group X, an anonymous group of Philadelphia local artists, curators, & organizers, and the Philadelphia Navy Yard are celebrating their latest public art installation, Tape Philadelphia: Enter the Cocoon. The cocoon is a massive, interactive tape sculpture created by experimental European arts collective Numen/For Use.
Group X were responsible for curating an installation last year featuring the inflatable Betty the sea monster, whose tentacles wrapped around the exterior of an empty warehouse in the Navy Yard. Betty was the brainchild of Filthy Luker, a duo who create inflatable art installations. She was such a big hit that Group X and the Navy Yard decided to install a new exhibition once Betty was taken down.
They’ve taken the same building and transformed it into a giant tape cocoon. The sculpture is supported by the building’s structural beams and consists of 21.5 miles of translucent tape. It took approximately two weeks and ten people to create. It invites visitors to not only view the massive structure from the ground, but also to crawl around in its web-like tunnels.
Numen/For Use have created tape sculptures all around the world in cities like Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Florence, Stockholm, and Berlin, to name a few. There are more than 40 of their installations all over the world and we’re feeling lucky to have one in our own backyard.
Tape Philadelphia: Enter the Cocoon has been open since Nov. 9 and will run through Dec. 1 and is free to the public. If you’re local to the Philadelphia area, stop by and see the exhibit before it’s gone! For more information, visit: https://navyyard.org/cocoon
