Loeb Fellowship 45th Anniversary Lecture: Swoon, On The Urban Impact of Collaborative Gestures

Caledonia Curry, who works under the name “Swoon,” is a classically trained artist and printmaker whose work explores the relationship between people and the built environment. From giant portraits that she wheat-pastes on buildings to large-scale architectural installations, her work is distinguished by its beauty and inventiveness, motivated by a cooperative spirit and compassion for the struggles of people in vulnerable situations. Her practice has been hailed as a model of creative leadership across disciplines.

As a response to the problem of global warming, Swoon and her collaborators made fantastical ships out of garbage, which they sailed down the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers and, in Europe, crossed the Adriatic Sea to the Venice Biennale. Her project to build houses in post-earthquake Haiti is titled “Konbit Shelter,” using the Haitian Creole word for cooperative community labor. She is currently collaborating with the arts initiative New Orleans Airlift to construct a musical house, Dithyrambalina.

The Loeb Fellowship has an extra reason to hail its anniversary this October: forty-five years of gathering mid-career practitioners for a transformative year at Harvard GSD. From October 22 to 24, 2015, Loeb alumni, representing the broadest spectrum of achievements, will convene from around the world in Cambridge to participate in an exchange of practices and to hear from great thinkers about design and equity in the resilient city.

See the schedule of public events.

For accessibility accommodations, please contact the events office in advance at [email protected] or (617) 496-2414.

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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