Skip to content Skip to footer

Merel Noorlander

Non-binary Sextoy 2 | 5″ x 13″ x 5″ | Kinetic creature is partly cast & molded with silicone, color pigmenting, epoxy dough, designed with paper engineering, Tyvek, commercial strokers, 3D prints (PLA), servo motor, DC Gearbox, Lippo Battery,jumper wires, slide switch, resistors, micro charger | 2020


Artist Statement

My work navigates technology, social design, and performance, where bodily perspectives become non-normative storytelling. Fundamental to my research is collective empowerment. 

Kinetic installations and video performances interweave sexuality with contemporary objects—public and private. Paper, fiber, metals, silicone contract, expand, glow, and twist by way of hands, motors, and timers. Multilayered installations manifest an unfolded universe. With pleated patterns and transforming structures, electroformed or kinetic tools teach and project—a digital poetry. 

I develop social design and interrogate inner forces and artistic implications, renewing online dependency, identity, access, and common language, both physical and digital, in the service of the future of touch, attunement, and being at-home together. Fluid spaces transpose into a shared, visual language. As sex positive spaces, Noorlander examines vernaculars, gestures, scents, sounds and colors—in communication. 

I design second skins. Spaces, wearables, and objects unfold within the body whereby viewers contend with the epilogue, our stories within the realities of gender fluidity and sexuality, transforming our feelings and thoughts between desire and body, technique, and consciousness. In my work, I reach possibilities. 

I aim for promiscuous, intersectional perspectives on socio-global issues, fracturing dominant models of production, image, and bodies. Presenting 4D as a socio-political action. 

Artwork/s at the following locations:
Cass Cafe
Norwest Gallery
Scarab Club

Artist Website + Social Media:
www.merelnoorlander.com
Instagram @merelnoorlander_studio

MR/QD Is Made Possible BY

Artists stipends made possible by Kresge Arts in Detroit

For details and more info on making a contribution to Mighty Real/Queer Detroit, please contact us at info@mrqd.org

About MR/QD

Mighty Real/Queer Detroit is an art exhibition in June 2022 devoted to 77 years (1945-2022) of Detroit LGBTQ+ art 

The exhibition presents a month-long historical examination of the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community and its longtime allies, featuring established & emerging Detroit artists, as well as artists whose careers were shortened by HIV/AIDS.

Mighty Real/Queer Detroit is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to promoting positive and meaningful images of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community through artistic and intellectual means. © 2023. All Rights Reserved.