In the late nineties, while still a student at the Pratt Institute, Caledonia Curry, aka Swoon, created large-scale paper cutouts in her studio and gathered a team of friends and colleagues to help her paste them up on low-hanging billboards that were springing up all over her Brooklyn neighborhood. Fifteen years later, she became the first living street artist to receive a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

These days she is not only a street artist; she also creates immersive experiences and is also exploring the world of stop-motion animation, and her work has been featured in major institutions, galleries and collections the world over. Convinced that her art and her skills could and should be of use to a community, she has also founded the Heliotrope Foundation that oversees three projects she created in Haiti, New Orleans and Braddock, PA.

In this conversation with Artist as Leader producer/editor Pier Carlo Talenti, Caledonia discusses how a very shy girl growing up in difficult circumstances grew up to become such a capable team-leader, bold and visionary and yet also wise enough to know when to let someone else save the raft from an oncoming barge on the Mississippi. That's not a metaphor.

https://swoonstudio.org/

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/swoon/

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18627720/swoon-artist-caledonia-curry-submerged-motherlands-art-club