When a mail inquiry popped up on his monitor from Satyajit Das, founder of the design studio Archi­tec­ture Social Club, Luke Tanner, Commer­cial and Marketing Coor­di­nator at ebm-papst UK in Chelms­ford, had to pinch himself. The designer was looking for fans suit­able for installing in a pig.

The pig was to be an artwork accom­pa­nying the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Pink Floyd exhi­bi­tion and honoring the band’s 1977 album “Animals,” on which a flying pig is portrayed against the back­drop of the smoke­stacks of London’s Battersea Power Station. The museum had asked several inter­na­tional artists to design works for various loca­tions in London.

“I’m a Pink Floyd fan myself; their music is pretty unique,” says Tanner. So that made this a special project, but not only for him. The artist’s idea was to present a breathing pig instal­la­tion. The breathing effect was to be achieved by inflating and deflating 450 pink balloons. For that he needed the right fans.

The chal­lenges: noise, air perfor­mance, mate­rial – and time

So Tanner got the tech­nical team on board. “Finding the right fan was a real chal­lenge.” It had to be quiet enough to be inaudible when inflating and deflating, and the air perfor­mance had to be just right to make the breathing effect come off well. “The artist hadn’t spec­i­fied the mate­rial for the balloons, so in the end we began to test different mate­rials with different fans to perfect the effect,” says Tanner.

“Time was a real problem with this project. The pig was supposed to be designed and built within six weeks!”

Luke Tanner, Commer­cial and Marketing Coor­di­nator at ebm-papst UK

Since the air had to be blown in and sucked out, the team first thought about a solu­tion with reversible direc­tion of rota­tion, but that couldn’t be deliv­ered in the limited time frame. “Time was a real problem with this project. The pig was supposed to be designed and built within six weeks!” The team decided on a solu­tion with 900 axial fans in adjoining pairs. The distrib­utor RS Compo­nents helped source the fans.

A new home for the pig

The pig was completed in time for display in a London depart­ment store. With the success of this project ebm-papst are now antic­i­pating the artist will find a new venue to exhibit the sculp­ture. “The best place would be at Battersea Power Station, where the album cover was made,” hopes Tanner.