Joost Conijn
Netherlands
Between 1992 and 1997, Joost Conijn studied at the Rietveld Academy and at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. He gained notoriety with his self-built travel machines.
In 1999 he built an airplane, which he flew from the roof of ‘The Factory’, an artistic initiative in Eindhoven. Amongst the components of this machine were a bicycle, a wheelbarrow, and a motorcycle…
In the fall of 2001, he toured through Eastern Europe with a wooden car that drove on gas derived from a wood/gas generator.
He also designed a bicycle with a ‘kickback’ and he built a road gate that opens automatically for oncoming cars in the middle of the desert of Morocco.
His second plane crashed and is now on display in the garden of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. With his third self-built plane he flew successfully from the Netherlands to Kenya. He documents his travels with his own machines on film.
In his work, Conijn explores the boundaries between art and technology, man and machine.
Conijn won the Charlotte Köhler Prize for young artists in 2000, and the Cobra Art Prize in 2005. He was also nominated for the Prix de Rome in 2005.
In the Moment