An Inside Look at The Imagination and Energy of Swoon and “The Road By Walking”

This is how the road is made. Swoon invites you to take another step with her.

It’s been an enormous success this week for Street Artist Swoon as she launches her Heliotrope Foundation to bring the values and vision of her long-term community-based projects under one roof. Beginning with a packed private opening Wednesday with enthusiastic guests clamoring for a new print and to see a large selection of drawings, visitors also poked their heads around intricate small scale models of her centerpiece projects and into selfies with Swoon and Heliotrope board member Swizz Beatz.

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Since the earliest days of seeing Swoon’s wheat-pasted cutouts on New York streets passersby could tell that these waters run deep and are full of stories and a committed sense of our collective inherent responsibility to uphold our neighbor and to seek to re-balance.

The Road By Walking show allows you to personally contemplate the baseline commitment the artist is making to the fate of others whose lives have been struck by disaster – whether natural, as in the case of the earthquake in Haiti or the hurricane in New Orleans, or the man made economic disasters that leave communities worldwide suffering in their wake, as in the de-industrialized town of Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Without lecturing or preening, Swoon consistently demonstrates how using your talents, whatever they are, can transform – first through imagination, then through boots on the ground. With very dedicated teams of volunteers and talents alongside, in front of and behind her, Swoon keeps making new roads.

The Road By Walking, which is again open today and free to the public, allows fans of street art and social activism an opportunity to come face to face with how small scale artistic interventions can plant and nurture seeds of lasting change.

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA is proud to invite you to meet the artist today as The Road By Walking culminates in an Artists Talk with BSA and Swoon at a special reception tonight, where we’ll be learning about her plans for Heliotrope Foundation and specifically about Braddock Tiles, The Music Box, and Konbit Shelter.

We can’t wait to meet you! It is a free event and space is very limited so please RSVP so we’ll know you are coming.

(Please see all the links at the end of this post, including the RSVP button and online bidding)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. Maquette for Braddock Tiles Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. Interior view of maquette for Braddock Tiles Project in Braddock, PA.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. Interior view of maquette for Braddock Tiles Project in Braddock, PA.  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. Maquette for New Orleans Music Box Project. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. Maquette for New Orleans Music Box Project. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. Maquette for Knobi Shelter Project in Haiti. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Swoon. The Road By Walking. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Online bidding is still open! PADDLE8.COM/AUCTIONS/HELIOTROPE

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