a participatory installation by Tasha Lewis
Swarm the World is a worldwide collaborative installation conceived and orchestrated by NYC-based artist Tasha Lewis. Beginning in October 2014, fifteen packages of 350 butterflies each traveled the world in the hands of 204 different collaborators who installed them temporarily in public places.
Originally I was supposed to participate from Austin, Texas, but due to logistics and complications, I actually moved to Minnesota before I received the swarm. I finally got them on April 12, 2016. Due to it being the end of the spring semester at Macalester, as well as pretty gross weather-wise during the month of April, I waited until May to create my installations.
On Saturday, May 7 I took the swarm to Washington Ave in Minneapolis, where I installed them up and down the street on various structures such as construction signs, manhole covers, and telephone poles with the help of Travis Bedard and Will Hollis Snider. The wind made it difficult to keep the installations up for more than a few minutes, and at one point I chased the butterflies into traffic to rescue them. We had a couple of people stop to ask us about it and the response was really positive.
Then, on Sunday the three of us went to Minnehaha Falls where we installed them by the falls on a fence with the help of Trish, Mark, Paige, and Evelyn Vaillancourt. There were LOTS of people there, and many very curious people stopped to talk to us. One man assumed we were protesting something, and another person wanted to make sure we were going to "pick them all up" when we were done, but everyone else was very positive. Many people stopped to take their own photos with friends posing in front of the butterflies.
Swarm the World on Tumblr: the main collection of photos from installations all over the world.
Swarm the World Migration Site: for more information on the project itself.
|| created & orchestrated by Tasha Lewis | exhibited October 2014-May 2016 at sites all over the world | Minneapolis photography by Will Hollis Snider & Travis Bedard ||