Chicago, IL
2024

HOOPcycle is a mobile basketball court on a tricycle that can easily set up and activate different public spaces. HOOPcycle features one rim that resembles the look and feel of contemporary basketball and two oriented rims that remix the vertical orientation of its pre-Columbian precursor found throughout MesoAmerica since as early as 2500 BCE. By simply tilting the HOOPcycle’s rims 90 degrees onto its side, the artwork transforms how players score points, slam dunk, alley oop, and the design of the court altogether.

Deisgned with artist Marisa Morán Jahn HOOPcycle’s colorful appearance and adjustable-height rims engages a broader group of people who might not otherwise step into a basketball court. So too, with no predetermined ways to win, players are invited to re-imagine the rules of the game, rendering the game more accessible. HOOPcycle debuts at The National Public History Museum’s grand opening in Fall 2024.

HOOPcycle’s design reinterprets the Meso-American tradition of papel picado (“perforated paper”) in which the holes are said to let the past come through. In other words, the punctured surfaces, or mesh, invokes interfaces between space and time. Aside from the structural purposes of the mesh (to let wind pass through and reduce weight), its ornamentation  — much like individualist self-fashioning contemporary sports today — celebrates the game as an important form of cultural expression.

Design Team: Rafi Segal, Marisa Moràn Jahn, Ous Abou Ras.
Funding: The Joyce Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Chicago Association of Realtors, and The New School Faculty Development Fund.
Fabricator: Big Deal Cases (Arnie Hen).
Coordinator: Art Domantay.
Photo credit: David McMillan. Image courtesy of Sapar Contemporary.