Coachella 2022: These buoys are meant to be ‘islands of connectedness’ for festival-goers

In the ocean, buoys are there to warn mariners of upcoming dangers or guide them towards the shore.

At the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, three massive buoys appear as if they are floating on the grass, one is even tilting as if it’s floating in rough seas.

The installation is named “Buoyed,” and it is intended to act as an anchor, drawing in a few festivals goers from the sea of people at the venue to just to hang out and maybe get to know each other a little better.

“They are joyful, but almost in a conceptual way, kind of like anchors to hold on to because at this point in the last few years everything has been so chaotic that I think many people feel they need anchors,” said Kiki Van Eijk, a Dutch designer and artist who will be displaying her work at the festival for the first time.

Van Eijk’s work varies from furniture design to lighting installations to ceramics and glassware pieces to large scale sculptures like her trio of buoys at the festival.

“I like to work on that scale because I really think it has an impact on human beings. And I’m also a big music fan so I thought this was very exciting,” she said.

Like the other large scale artists with work at Coachella this year, Van Eijk began working on her installation for the 2020 festival, which was canceled due to the pandemic.

The buoys she created for the festival, which are made out of concrete, stucco and steal, are each about four stories tall and are meant to relay optimism about the future, the artist said.

“Everything has changed in three years,” she said. “But it’s incredible how well these sculptures fit in today’s world. I really see them as a kind of landmark on the festival and conceptually, to me, I call them islands of connectedness. They are inspired by buoys, but I made it a fantastical, fantasy kind of elements in there,” Van Eijk added.

One buoy is painted in an off-white color and has what appears to be butterfly wings spreading from its steeple, which are lit up at night.

Another buoy is painted blue and is shaped like a Dutch-style windmill with an igloo-like base while the third is green and has a 24-foot diameter base meant as a sitting spot for people.

All three are illuminated at night by LED lights.

“I’m combining references from different cultures within each sculpture. So it’s not religious and not representing one country but it’s a mix because I want to show the beauty of the diversity of people. And I think that’s what is beautiful about these types of festivals, it’s that the mix of people is making us beautiful in the end,” she said.