Eminent Visiting Artist Program: Caledonia Curry (SWOON) and Friends

Department of Visual Arts

We are excited to announce that Swoon will be our eminent visiting artist for the 2025-26 academic year!

Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon, is an artist and filmmaker recognized for her pioneering vision of public artwork. Through intimate portraits, animated films, immersive installations, and multi-year community based projects, she explores the potential for art and the creative process to act as a catalyst for social change and interpersonal healing.

Swoon and seven of her collaborators will enrich the lives of our students and community throughout the coming year. Check out our invited artist page to learn more about artist's Swoon, Joana Torres, Robin Frohardt, Patrick Dougher, Taylor Shepherd, Monica Canilao, Greg Henderson, and Delaney Martin and their incredible work.

A solo exhibition of Swoon's work will open in the UW Visual Arts Gallery on August 25. A reception will be held September 18, 6-pm in the Visual Arts Lobby. Keep informed about all upcoming Swoon related programing throughout Fall semester 2025 by checking out our public events page.

UPCOMING Swoon EVENTS

Smirking person in black with a blue textured background

More about Caledonia Curry

Caledonia Curry is a Brooklyn-based street artist. Drawing on both realistic and fantastical elements, Curry has been transforming the world with her immersive installations, wheat-paste portraits, and community-based social justice projects for the last two decades. While Curry’s work has adorned the walls of more classical institutions—including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Tate Modern—her overarching aim is to create accessible art that transports audiences while simultaneously shedding light on pressing social and environmental issues.

 

Curry’s recent work has been focused specifically on the relationship of trauma and addiction, drawing from her experience growing up in an opioid addicted family. In 2015, she developed The Road Home in collaboration with Philadelphia Mural Arts and the Million Person Project to serve a community ravaged by the opioid epidemic in North Philadelphia. The project included daily drop-in art therapy workshops and an ambitious advocacy component that culminated with harm-reduction workshops with the Philadelphia Department of Health and a public symposium. Recent projects include The House Our Families Built, a major public art commission in collaboration with PBS American Portrait, as well as an upcoming feature length stop-motion animation. The film, currently in pre-production, is supported by the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.