The “library of emoji art” is a large-scale community-based public art project that showcases “emoji art” created by communities around the world, at different times and in response to different topics.
Every work of “emoji art” is a site-specific work of socially engaged performance art, that reflects the identity of the participating city and community. For every performance, Schwenk brings hundreds of people from the community together to connect, and communicate with each other in the physical world as they create large-scale emojis using their bodies. The emoji is designed by the community in a workshop(s) and is then presented as a work of performance art with the bodies of the participants who come from all areas of life such as aged care homes, schools, fire brigades, police, church groups, businesses, music groups and sports groups. To connect individual projects across the world, Schwenk pairs every performance of “emoji-art” with the performance of one of the most popular emojis of the year.
“emoji-art” performances are fun, eye-catching and full of movement. The participants bring emojis to life with their bodies as they stand, sit, kneel, walk, march their arms, laugh and/or lay on the ground. Emojis are now an essential part of communication in our media driven age. Creating analogue versions of these digital icons helps counter isolation and makes it easier to connect with one another in the physical world
“emoji art” lives on after the performance for the performers and others to enjoy. GIFs and photographs of the “emoji art” performances, together with drawings from the workshops, and archive material such as radio programs, social media posts, are deposited into the “library of emoji art”.