Baltimore Sweep Action Parade
The Baltimore Sweep Action Parade is a community street intervention in Baltimore City, in which the participants swept the litter from the streets and sidewalks in a parade fashion, covering four miles in total distance. The four parades routes were established each a mile in length, each ending in the center of the city in the historic Mt. Vernon Place. Each parade consisted of about 20 people armed with brooms, musicians, drummers and a local marching band, and a troop of stilt walkers led and designed by MICA alumni, Valeska Populoh. The collected waste was then installed into a sculpture, The Monument for Collective Effort, which was erected in the southern park at the foot of the Washington Monument. It could be described as a broom fasces, a forms of spears tied in a bundle around a single axe most commonly used in Rome to imply strength in numbers, an architectural reference from the many fasces symbols surrounding the park. Nearly one hundred people participated, many of which were swept into the parade as they watched from the sidewalk. A documentary of the parade was produced and screened in April at the park and there is an edition of photos, screen prints and objects. The event was organized for the exhibition Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square in partnership with the Walter’s Art Museum exhibition Maps: Finding Our Place in the World.
The Monument for Collective Effort, Steel, Brooms, plexi, fill dirt over the collected street debris durring the Baltimore Sweep Action Parade. Mt. Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD.
Parade Route for Baltimore Sweep Action Parade.
Staging grounds for the BSAP. Maryland Institute College of Art.
The northern route sweep down Charles Street.
The Northern route crossing Penn Station on Charles Street.
The Western route takes a group picture at the end of the Parade.
End of the parade.
