Philadelphia

Enter the Cocoon: New Installation Invites People to Crawl Through 21 Miles of Tape

Take off your shoes and crawl into this new Philadelphia art exhibit for an experience that will stick with you forever.

Tape Philadelphia: Enter the Cocoon occupies a vacant warehouse near the Philadelphia Navy Yard and is made entirely of translucent tape, 21.5 miles worth. This is the second partnership between Group X and the Navy Yard after they installed an inflatable sea monster in a rusting building last year. 

The experimental European arts collective Numen/For Use is responsible for this unique sculpture, the group’s first on the East Coast. The exhibit invites people to explore the installation both physically and visually.

All visitors are invited to interact with the space around them, view the exhibit from the ground, and enter the interior of the installation itself. Tape Philadelphia: Enter the Cocoon is one of Numen/For Use’s most accessible tape installations to date and integrates the needs of people with disabilities.

This tape-constructed piece has a double-sided purpose: the labyrinth of passageways leads an interesting navigation, but it also brings exhibitors together.

“Since you have to take your shoes off and crawl on all fours, it makes the social borders come down,” the collective said in a statement. “Maybe it is somehow like in a different world and some rules and borders do not count for a while.”

Within a city already full of monuments and murals, Group X said it believes this experience allows for the expansion of public art.

“The project is asking questions about the role of the viewer … and the responsibility of art that’s represented for public consumption,” Group X said in a statement.

Tape Philadelphia: Enter the Cocoon is open most Thursdays through Sundays beginning Nov. 9 through Dec. 1 and is free to the public. Open hours are 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Click here for the address and more information

Contact Us