Big Will and Friends
Type
Installation
Location
Syracuse University, TU Eindhoven
Size
15 sqm
Design Team
Gabe Boyajian, Nico Carmona
Photography
Ioana Turcan
Video
Adam Morrison
Choreography
Stephanie White (Syracuse) Balletstudio Valentijn (Eindhoven)
Big Will and Friends redraws the popular Morris and Co. Wallpaper ‘Thistle’ (designed by John Henry Dearle) into an inhabitable visual environment. While walls traditionally act as support for pictures to be hung; the installation melds the wall with painted pattern - blurring the distinction between the qualities of the image with its material support.

While Morris & Co. wallpaper are designed to create seamless continuity around the room, the surfaces of the installation are repetitive but not continuous. The pattern for Big Wills’ surfaces were built from a non-tiling JPEG that are further cropped and stitched together into repetitive formations with strange breaks and odd sizes.

The project has been shown in exhibition spaces in Syracuse, New York (February 2016); Eindhoven, Netherlands (January 2017) and at the Los Angeles Design Festival (2019). Each time inviting new friends to perform and inhabit its’ confines to perceptually extend or flatten the visual space of the installation.
Big Will and Friends • Related Project