Zwaanshals in Motion, at that time also called ZiM, was a community-art project in a lively migrant shopping street called Zwaanshals in the Old North district of Rotterdam. The project was initiated and run by Daniela Swarowsky. Active from summer 2004 until summer 2006, ZiM was located in a predominantly migrant district with a high Moroccan/Berber population amongst the many other nationalities. The Zwaanshals area has a rich past in being a former Dutch working class district. Parallel worlds predominate and hardly any mixing occurs. Curiosity about "the other"' seems nowadays a romantic image. Concepts like "tolerance" and "individualism" have lost their meaning and turned into empty words, masking an atmosphere of ignorance and a loss of bonding on a community level.
Stichting ZiM chose Zwaanshals as a field of research and as physical format for three different topics: the role of art in urban renovation and gentrification processes, the potential of art within a local community (community art) and finally ZiM's ethnografically oriented work with migratory issues.