Swept Away

14th Street, Manhattan NY

Art in Odd Places CARE Festival

October 18-20, 2024

Image Credits: Henry Truitt Harshaw 

Swept Away is a three-day performance piece for the Art in Odd Places festival. With a simple, repetitive gesture I swept public streets to highlight acts of care that shape our shared environment. Wielding a broom and wearing a necklace of house keys—symbols of Zita, Patron Saint of domestic workers and lost keys— I tended to storefronts and sacred buildings by reverently brushing away the detritus of daily life. Each intentional sweep of the broom turned a routine task into a considered gesture, and the mundane act of street cleaning into a meditative practice.

Art in Odd Places (AiOP) is an annual public art festival that champions the importance of public space as a venue for the well-being of people to interact, initiate, and exchange ideas. Curators: Patricia Miranda and Christopher Kaczmarek