TEDxBrooklyn- Callie Curry aka Swoon

Swoon is a Brooklyn-based artist whose life-sized woodblock and cut-paper portraits hang on walls in various states of decay in cities around the world. She has designed and built several large-scale installations, most notably the Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea at Deitch Projects in 2008. Her pieces have been collected by The Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, & the Tate Modern. Major pieces have appeared at PS1, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Black Rat Press. Swoon is also an instigator and a collaborator. She founded the Toyshop collective and the Miss Rockaway Armada, and is a member of Just Seeds and the Transformazium. Since 2006 she has organized four large-scale raft projects and floated down the Mississippi and Hudson rivers with them. Most recently, she and her collaborators designed a flotilla of sea-going rafts that invaded the 2009 Venice Biennale. Her artistic process is predicated on the belief that art is an immersive, provocative, and transformative experience for its participants. Although her aesthetics can be seen as an outgrowth of street art, her engagement with ethical living and making art share a close kinship with the idealism of off-grid, barter-based cultures and economies based on sharing. She uses scavenged and local materials and embraces print media as a potent means of action for social change.

What is TEDx?

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxBrooklyn, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxBrooklyn event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.

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  Education

[sougenchan]

my favorite artist.

[JordanPTurner]

the first time i saw one of your wheatpastes i was in Venice, hanging out under a arched alleyway by a slowly flowing canal. Your piece changed my artistic life. Thank you forever.

[Ave Figgy]

Brilliant/inspirational/magica­l....@4:51-5:35 + 12:09-13:08 = perfect

[Emma Whittaker]

i am now convinced that Callie Curry is a really really amazing artist, she has had such an amazing life and really feels like an amazing person. so inspiring to hear her talk about art and people.

[Wendy Wallbridge]

she is an inspiring living example of the creative impulse embodied.. the unexpected

[ROBBIE SUN]

CALLIE You have to come to Burning Man this year, it's all you seem to embrace.

got tickets.

[heyimc8]

Bout to make my self some paste. Now. Thank you Callie and thank you to all the artists like myself living in this struggle trying to push that perceptual shift. It's out of love so keep pushing..

[nublex]

4:38 fucking AWESOME that's what it is. fuck my life

[nublex]

whaaat the fuck; what she's doing on a tedtalk haha :D she's perfect. inspiration for street artists around the world

[sloomis13]

Love, love, love her work!