Knomad Colab is a traveling artist collective that creates vibrant outdoor art installations in public spaces. This artist team swears by Pro Tapes® products for creating their work and setting it up behind the scenes. Learn more in the interview below!
Do you have a website or any social media sites you’d like to share with our audience?
Our site: www.knomadcolab.com
Instagram: @knomad.colab
Tell us a little about yourselves! What is Knomad Colab? How did you get started collaborating together?
We’re Katy Flaccavento and Zachary Christopher: a pair of art geek music nerds and the co-creators of Knomad (aka Knomad Colab.) We’re a nomadic artist collaborative, which activates mostly public spaces with both pop-up and permanent art experiences. In a parallel universe, we’d be purveyors of magic lanterns and fairy dust.
Our creative endeavors began musically in 2001 at a performing arts high school in the Virginia Beach area, at the ripe old age of 17. After pursuing further education in both music and visual arts in the Mid West and Western NY (and working together on indoor art installations), our creative course took a winding road to working predominantly outdoors.
We first dabbled with old school lighting with color gels, but the advent of less expensive and more dynamic LED technology was an ENORMOUS catalyst for delving fully into the world of immersive art installations. With that in our back pocket, Knomad was born in 2013.
What inspires your artwork and process?
Because our artistic practice involves a healthy dose of play and experimentation, a few LED lights eventually snowballed into working with ANYTHING that imbues energy, including light, sound, mirrors, and yes, NEON YELLOW TAPE!
The majority of our installations, steeped in the genre of retro futurism, occur in lost or hidden spaces. These environments, usually featuring a wooded, watery, or rusted aesthetic, provide an important juxtaposition to our lively and colorful materials (or as we like to call them … “paint.”)
We are inspired by worlds between worlds… lost and hidden places… the undiscovered stories of the landscape and people as they evolve through time and space.
We also LOVE music. LOVE IT!!!
Are there any songs or artists who really inspire your work?
This is such a difficult question to answer because there are so many artists and songs we love that inspire us and our work! But if we have to break it down, the genres that really fuel our visual work include Art Rock, Classical Impressionism, Global Groove, and House Hop.
Here’s 5 songs that give a good picture of the vibes that fuel our work:
- Susso – Ansumana
- Disclosure – Expressing What Matters
- Stereo Lab – Black Ants in Sound Dust/Space Moth
- Kaytranada – Bullets
- Gang Gang Dance – Adult Goth
If you want to hear more of what inspires our art, check out our hand-crafted playlists on Spotify!
How did you discover Pro Tapes® tape products?
Our first Pro Tapes® experience was purely functional: Black Pro Gaff® tape. At one point, part of our work in sound and lighting work was event based. (Editor’s note: It checks out – our Pro Gaff® is the world-famous standard for taping down, bundling cables -and more- at events.)
Which Pro Tapes® products do you use now? What are your favorite qualities about them?
We began using Pro Tapes® in the foreground of our artwork around 2012, mostly working with Pro® Spike in Fluorescent Yellow. Our palette recently expanded to also include Pro® Camo Gaff and Pro® Sheen in Silver.
Behind the scenes, we also use many Pro Tapes® products to build and install our work: Pro® Net 10, Pro® Spike in Black, Pro® 156 ATG, Pro® P-28 electrical tape (mainly in grey and pink), and Pro® JLAR II Gel Repair.
We choose to use Pro Tapes® in our art installations over other options because of the obvious focus they have on adhesives. As of yet, there is really no comparison when it comes to their Pro® Spike Tape. We have total confidence in the quality and consistency of their products. These tapes are INDISPENSABLE, not only for their functional use of adhering, but also for their artistic applications, as we consider them a valuable drawing tool.
Check out this brief behind-the-scenes video for the making of “Sometimes I’m (Ne)On” featuring Pro® Spike in Fluorescent Yellow:
If someone has never used tape to create art, what advice do you have for them?
Dig in!! Experiment! PLAY!!
Do you have any exciting new projects our readers should keep a lookout for?
Yes!! Head to our @knomad.colab Insta to follow our ‘Portals’ popup series – immersive light installations in hiddetn and forgotten spaces featuring the @asteraled NYX Bulb. ‘Portals’ will be popping up randomly across the US over the next several months.
For all the art collectors out there, we’ve got a newly added shop on our website: https://collect.knomadcolab.com/products. You can also head to our home page to find more of our work, contact info for commissions, and for random blog musings.
