Nearly a decade ago, famous Dutch photojournalist Jeroen Swolfs set out to visit and photograph street life in every country in the world. He said goodbye to his family and friends, left his home and gave himself 5 years to finish this ambitious project.
The need for sharing positivity
It ended up being 7 long, sometimes lonely, years in which he continuously looked for positive stories to share with the world. The result of this impressive journey is captured in his life’s work Streets of the World. Streets of the World is a photography project that does not only impress by its scale, but also by the photographer’s intriguing outlook and his eye for people. Ultimately, with his 195 street photos taken in as many countries, Jeroen Swolfs wants to show a positive image of the world we live in.
Did he really visit every country in the world?
Well yes, except for three; Equatorial Guinea, Yemen and Libya. Being a photo journalist, Equatorial Guinea for instance is currently not letting him in. While he’ll definitely visit these remaining three countries in the near future as well, he figured his message was so important he'd rather start sharing it asap.
Want to know more about what brings a man to start such an impossible journey? Well, like many good ideas, it all started with a couple of drinks.
Looooong story short: he's bringing us together
After seven years of traveling, it is now time for seven years of sharing. Jeroen continues his journey with the Streets of the World Tour, bringing his exhibition to all corners of the world to share his photographs and their message. From city to city, country to country and continent to continent. Jeroen Swolfs wants his work to inspire people to look at each other differently – not focusing on what divides us, but on what brings us together.
Gigantic pop-up exhibitions
This new journey started with a pop-up exhibition in the old Carlsberg factory in Denmark. There’ve also been several exhibitions in Jeroen’s home country, the Netherlands. The first one was in an old multiple floor parking lot in multicultural area de Bijlmer in Amsterdam South-East, a couple of months later the exhibition moved on to an industrial 3800m2 photo museum at the UNESCO world-heritage site Hembrugterrein in Zaandam for another 2 years. From Spring 2019 Streets of the World is exhibited for one more year in business district Zuidas in Amsterdam.
But the real kick-off of this Streets of the World Tour will be in Dubai from 20 January 2019 - 5 April 2019 with the biggets outdoor exhibition EVER organised, along the beautiful Dubai Creek at the enchanting Al Seef leisure destination by Meraas.
Why so much effort?
As a photographer and as a human being, Jeroen believes sharing his positive experiences and stories about connection, love and hope is more important than ever. Streets of the World focusses on our similarities in day to day life instead of our cultural differences, because we're a lot less different than everyone thinks.
Ambitious? Maybe. Doable? YES. How? Check out Jeroen’s TEDx about positivity in all streets of the world.
Curious about how he managed to stay focused moving towards his end goal all these years and what crazy situations he encountered? Check out his e-book, where he’ll give you the full insiders story.
Tags Pop-up Exhibitions, Photography Inspiration, Travel Inspiration, Adventure, Jeroen Swolfs
