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Eli Hooper

zine , video , schrijven , schilderen , riso-print , natuur , Media , Internet , installatie , Grafiek , Geluid , fotografie , film , Digitale technologie , Community , Audiovisueel

Working primarily in photographic and audio-visual media, Eli Hooper is an artist currently exploring the limits of home as a physical space, the influence of digitality on memory and nostalgia, and world-building as a utopic process.

New Zealand-born and Rotterdam-based, Eli has a keen interest in how the cultural products we consume shape our experiences with the world, and what happens to our identities when these memories become intangible. Can a sense of shared, limitless belonging exist within nostalgia? Eli attempts to bring morsels from his own world to connect to those of others, finding unity in the realms between.

Chloe's corner (cover under the seventh seal)
Chloe's corner (cover under the seventh seal) - from the ongoing project only god knows what will happen to us now transfer, sticker on canvas 20 x 28 cm
Selune's dream
Selune's dream - from the ongoing project only god knows what will happen to us now transfer, sticker on canvas 20 x 28 cm
ok let’s go
ok let’s go - from "smaller works" transfer & acrylic on canvas 37 x 47 cm
Exhibition Photography from Smaller Works at Porfot - October 2025
Exhibition Photography from Smaller Works at Porfot - October 2025 - Monochromatic inkjet transfers and experiments using online archival material within small form factors
Exhibition Photography from
Exhibition Photography from "the wings of mechanical doves" - the wings of mechanical doves draws us into the layered memoryscape of Eli Hooper’s world — one that flickers between the physical and the rendered. Photographs line the windows like open browser tabs, glimpses into empty cities and forgotten corners. Inside, cyanotypes depicting video games and found photos exist as slower, softer relics touched by light and time, cultural products from Eli’s childhood. Cultural fragments — borrowed titles, textures, screenshots — serve as breadcrumbs through a personal mythology shaped by games, memories, and otherworlds. What emerges is not nostalgia as aesthetic, but nostalgia as architecture — what happens when the digital meets the ethereal, when steel touches myth, and ruins begin to speak in pixels.
Exhibition Photography from
Exhibition Photography from "the way the wind blows" - Group show in Kabul a gogo in Utrecht
Exhibition Photography from
Exhibition Photography from "my bones break around blue borders" - my bones break against blue borders is a selection of images I've made over the last five years that try to portray notions of alienation, home, and nostalgia. How is the past remembered after being physically away from it? Home, for most, is no longer a physical space, as globalization and the rising importance of digital communities are changing our true definitions of belonging. The exhibition was a chance to explore my own memories and relation to the manifestation of nostalgia in space.
(working title) new work - In my experimentation towards a new work, I aim to explore how the contemporary digital landscape colors and changes our notions of home and belonging. An extension from my previous work, Arcadia, FL, I aim to research and conduct experiments in bitmaps, various methods of image compression, and AI generation to research the influence of current technology in the construction of nostalgia.
Arcadia, FL
Arcadia, FL - Finding the red thread in one’s personal life throughout the chaos of the world is, to put it simply, a difficult task; in a system that is so sporadic and surreal, ever shifting at the hands of political, societal, and personal change, it seems like any remaining strand of coherency is, in effect, “lost to the void.” Yet, the necessity to find and follow this thread has occurred more and more often throughout my life and practice, and arcadia, FL is my own attempt to tune in and harness the hidden frequencies of order. Arcadia, FL was shown during the WdKA graduation show in 2023.
page from a borrowed home: reflections on roots - A result of a four-year body of work, a borrowed home: reflections on roots is my attempt to tackle notions of alienation and estrangement from one's birthplace and family, and a portrayal of my own personal struggle in doing so. Each copy is hand-bound and delicately made in order to complement the detached and isolate nature of the content within, taking approx. Two hours per copy. With reflections on roots, I invite you to reflect on stories of your own and weave your own notions of home, love, grief, and everything in between. a borrowed home: reflections on roots first edition, September 2022 18x26cm, 105 pages + 7 inserts edition of 30 + 1 AP hand-bound and printed in rotterdam, the netherlands
artwork from Rebuilding a Borrowed Home - The body of work titled Rebuilding a Borrowed Home was created for the exhibition Se Retrouver at the Huis van de Fotografie in collaboration with eleven other colleagues. The work itself was made in response to the “failure” of the previous project I worked on (Burning Down a Borrowed Home) in communicating meaning and aimed to serve as a reflection of uncertainty and failure in representation as well as my position in the greater project (simply A Borrowed Home). The work was a combination of a diptych video and assorted cyanotypes containing writings and reflections on the project and failure of the one previous, images from my birthplace of New Zealand and ones here in Rotterdam, and the two worked together in order to create a chronicle of where I was at in the project, yet also a standalone poetic piece that represented the greater concept of struggle and belonging in the creative process.
Burning Down A Borrowed Home - Upon my return to Rotterdam from a few weeks seeing family in New Zealand, I was invited by the Post-post collective, a group of artists creating autonomous work in De Hillevliet, to participate in their open call for holding an exhibition in Foundation B.A.D., and I found this the perfect opportunity to close up A Borrowed Home whilst simultaneously exhibiting it to the public. I created the work Burning Down a Borrowed Home, a series of riso-printed and black-and-white photographs representing my frustration at the work and the fact that I wanted to “burn it down” in order to move on.

Beamers and Beer

Datum:
Locatie: QSP galerie

Part of the group show, Beamers and Beer, in which members of C3 travelled to Roubaix for a showcase of work on multiple projectors

smaller works

Datum:
Locatie: Porfot

Monochromatic inkjet transfers and experiments using online archival material within small form factors, exhibited for a month at Porfot, Rotterdam

76x32x32_200x85x360

Datum:
Locatie: Vlak - Small but tall

76x32x32_200x85x360 was part of Rotterdam Art Week, and advertised itself as “the largest group show in the smallest art space”. VLAK’s first collective exhibition showed small-scale, never-shown-before works by 76 Rotterdam-based artists selected through an open call, presented together in a transparant display wall.

https://www.instagram.com/vlak_projectspace/

The Wings of Mechanical Doves

Datum:
Locatie: Time is the New Space

From the website:
The Wings of Mechanical Doves draws us into the layered memoryscape of Eli Hooper’s world — one that flickers between the physical and the rendered. Photographs line the windows like open browser tabs, glimpses into empty cities and forgotten corners. Inside, cyanotypes depicting video games and found photos exist as slower, softer relics touched by light and time, cultural products from Eli’s childhood.

Stormslag - The Way the Wind Blows

Datum:
Locatie: Kabul a gogo
In samenwerking met: Stormslag

Part of a group show from a mobile gallery, Stormslag, I had the chance to exhibit new work from my project "The Wings of Mechanical Doves."

My bones break against blue borders - solo exhibition

Datum:
Locatie: Pakhuis de Zwijger cafe

my bones break against blue borders is a selection of images i've made over the last five years that try to portray notions of alienation, home, and nostalgia. How is the past remembered after being physically away from it? Home, for most, is no longer a physical space, as globalisation and the rising importance of digital communities are changing our true definitions of belonging. The exhibition was a chance to explore my own memories and relation to the manifestation of nostalgia in space.

https://dezwijger.nl/nieuws/art-in-our-cafe-in-october

ARCADIA, FL

Datum:
Locatie: Willem de Kooning Kunstacademie
In samenwerking met: Fondskwadraat, Willem de Kooning Kunstacademie

Finding the red thread in one's life throughout the chaos of the world is, to put it simply, a difficult task; in a system that is so sporadic, ever shifting at the hands of political, societal, and personal change, it seems like any remaining strand of coherency is, in effect, “lost to the void.” Yet, the necessity to find this thread has occurred more and more often throughout my life and practice, and arcadia, FL is my own attempt to tune in and harness the hidden frequencies of order.

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