Anooki: Les Turbulents -

Anooki: Les Turbulents

Best Time to See:

Anytime

Meet the Anooki, two droll and cheeky figures who have lost their home! These giant, inflatable messengers commandeer urban spaces, turning Grand Rapids into their playground.

As their ice home has dissolved, they are on the front line of climate change, hoping to inspire us to imagine solutions. While their antics are pure fun and friendship, they also deliver an important message about the fragility of our planet and climate change.

Catch Les Turbulents here and don’t forget to find the two other Anooki figures at DeVos Place!

Location:

Ah-Nab-Awen Park, Front Avenue Northwest, Grand Rapids, MI, USA

Artist Name:

Moetu Batlle and David Passegand

Materials Used:

Inflatable Sculpture, LED Lights

Categories:

Educational, Inflatables, International

Artist Statement:

The Anooki characters came about in 2000, when two designers, Moetu Batlle and David Passegand founded Inook, their interactive design company. Moetu, a perfectionist graphic designer and David, a digital handyman with great animator talent, both graduated from ESDI (Ecole Supérieure de Design Industriel). They came up with an original and off-the-wall way of communication : create 2 characters who will live on their website as an animated screensaver and offer it as end of year gift. The gift perfects itself and turned into great speakers. Broadcast for free on the web, the hundreds of thousands of downloads encouraged the duet of designers to develop a full universe on new medium ; a TV series, a collection of Facebook stamps, collectibles and goodies, monumental projection mappings in Lyon, Hong Kong, Dubaï, Osaka, Singapore, Kiev, Torun…

With Inook, they design innovative, creative and smart digital projects for companies, brands and institutions in search of an identity. UX/UI, interactive or video installations, websites, mobile apps, iOT, …

Artist Bio

Moetu & David met at their design school in Paris, and in 2000 teamed up to create their digital design studio. For 20 years, they’ve been developing innovative, creative, and agile projects for companies, brands, products, and institutions in search of a strong identity.

At the same time, they created the Anooki, two Inuit-inspired characters—funny, endearing, and a little cheeky—who became their playground for creative exploration. The artistic duo went on to produce sound and light shows as well as exhibitions of monumental inflatable sculptures in urban spaces. The Anooki have traveled all over the world: Dubai, Osaka, Singapore, Kyiv, Toruń, Hong Kong, Doha, Taiwan, Shanghai, Geneva, Zagreb, Beijing…