ArtistResearcherPeacebuilder

A life shaped
through creation.

For more than two decades, Benjamin Swatez, PhD, has explored art as both aesthetic language and transformative force. An internationally exhibited fine artist, his work has been presented in more than fifteen museums across four continents, while his field practice has carried painting, large-scale murals, performance, and expressive arts into communities across six continents.

Swatez earned his PhD in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation Through Expressive Arts from the European Graduate School. His research grew from ethnographic fieldwork he directed within active conflict zones and the sustained artistic relationships that emerged through this immersive practice, particularly in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ukraine.

From this research, he articulated Artegenesis: a framework examining how collective creative experience can generate ripples of agency, relationship, narrative, and social transformation beyond the original encounter.

His practice moves between studio, museum, community, and field research. An independent artist, researcher, and educator, Swatez is also co-founder of The Goodness Tour (TGT) and Organización Mundial de los Artistas Integrados (OMAI). Across these intersecting practices, he investigates a question at the heart of his work: how does creating alter what becomes possible, within ourselves, between one another, and across the living systems we inhabit?