Daniel Popper is living life large…as large as his imagination in fact.
This 33-yearold Cape Town-based designer builds spectacular public art installations that are helping to shift interactive art for brands. Popper began “playing” with installations at AfrikaBurn in 2007, where he discovered that building things with his hands opened up new ways of thinking.
And the more sculptures he made, the more his creative capacity grew, leading to larger and increasingly interactive sculptures. In 2010, MTN commissioned Popper to make giant Pop Puppets for the FIFA Fan Parks during the World Cup. Since then, Popper has created a slew of impressive sculptures, including dragons, serpents, robots and an 11-metre steel “tree of wisdom” for the Mandela School of Science and Technology in the Eastern Cape.
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But Popper says he is most proud of the 13-metre statue of an imaginary shaman that he created for Portugal’s Boom Festival. He also stresses the importance of teamwork, and the fact that he would never be able to create his artworks by himself.
Inspired by art in all its forms, Popper enjoys fusing electronic music, LED and projection mapping to create works that “move people to a deeper place within themselves”.
