Sweet Anticipation Mousetrap by Mark Sturkenboom

Sweet Anticipation is Mark Sturkenbooms pièce de résistance. A 50.000 euro one-of-a kind mousetrap that is designed to change the arrival of the unwanted guest into an arrival of the long awaited.

In 2012, the idea rose about changing our perspective about the modern household,
that of over-regulated domains, to be more precise. Because there is a strict order as to who we allow to enter and stay and who we exclude from this privilege. This includes humans as well as animals. The precursor to Sweet Anticipation was born.

Now, we present it’s successor. Sweet Anticipation is a luxury and unique mousetrap that includes mouth blown and glass engraved components, a Japanese handknotted silk rope, a raw and uncut diamond and a 18ct gold entrance for it’s guest.

With this object that waits to be lived in, one can domesticate a wild intruder and force him or her to became one’s companion. Of course, it provides the mouse with a safe place to stay, water and food at hand, but more important it changes our attitudes. The owner of this trap will inevitably wake up one morning with the strong wish that his or her mouse trap will no longer be empty.
Sweet Anticipation is the result.

Mark Sturkenboom (Driebergen, 1983) is an artist that graduated with honors in 2012 at Artez Academy for the Arts in Arnhem/Netherlands. Since 2012 he works as a conceptual product designer/artist in his atelier in Utrecht.
His work balances between art and design, he stretches the boundaries between art and design. He offers new viewpoints and rituals to deal with life.
‘My focus lies not on the appearance of things, but on what I call the deeper layers in the relation between an object and its owner. ‘I try to call forward a myriad of associations and stimulate our thinking about what counts to us in our lives.
I examine the meaning of objects and products and set them free from their conventional and initial use.’
Sturkenboom reinterpretates products that are often intertwined with the themes love, time or has an inclination with a collective value perception.
Engaging his work, you probably will need to start making ‘moral’ decisions. For instance his Ark, table clock, urn or vase are not just functional or only good looking.
In their presence and while handling them they invite you to think about time, love passed or the possibility to free yourself from the burden of your possessions by destroying them.
His work is exhibited and part of private collections worldwide, from New York to Shanghai, from Tokio to Amsterdam.