Covering The World With Butterflies

One artist, Tasha Lewis, wants to cover the world with butterflies- one city or town at a time.

Swarm The World, a global art project involving 400 butterflies, is "an international street art project that wants to decorate countries from Iceland to Tasmania in a stunning collection of blue-tinted butterfly drawings." The HuffPost Good News article: Why One Artist Wants To Cover The World In Butterflies
                                                                                 

Lewis is seeking cities who would like to receive her magnetized blue butterflies for a four week rural or cityscape design.

On her website she seeks to show her work globally without leaving New York City, her butterflies would fly to their destination for 4 weeks and then on to the next participant. 

" 'This idea was born out of the fact that I, as an individual artist living in NYC, cannot currently travel around the world (as much as I wish I could), I can, however, organize a massive social experiment where I send out groups of butterflies to willing participants who will then add their own installations to the project through digital and analog platforms.' "

 Lewis has created 4,000 magnetic cyanotype butterflies and these will be divided up into batches of 400 butterflies, 10 groups. So she is seeking 10 groups to send her butterfly package out to. "Lewis' carefully crafted packages include the blue-and-white artworks, a notebook to keep track of their journeys, a how-to guide on the project and a medical kit... in case the fragile pieces experience the wear and tear of travel." The groups will have the butterflies on display for a month and "during that time sharing pictures and stories on social media and populating an online map for all to see. 'The final round of participants will ship the butterflies back to me in New York,' Lewis explains, 'where I will organize a capstone gallery show with our collective images from all over the globe.' "

Lewis's project is ambitious, but will hopefully not only bring joy and beauty to different spots in the world, but could also highlight the dwindling amount of butterflies that are migrating to Mexico as was discovered in the past few years. The Washington Post reported in 2012 that there was a dramatic decrease in Monarchs migrating to Mexico that year. Monarch butterflies keep disappearing. Here’s why.

Lewis discusses her project on the Guerilla Sculpture website: Guerilla Sculpture and her website: Tasha Lewis and her project "Swarm: World Migration" website: Swarm: World Migration

I love how Tasha's work makes even inner cityscapes, where paint is peeling and there is rust, look beautiful. But, of course, that is what a real butterfly would do,beautify wherever it is.

Does your city want to participate?