A Broader Perspective On Street Art: "The Things We Walk Upon" (A Photo Series)

No matter if it’s a stencil, a sticker or an actual graffiti, street art catches our eye because it can usually be found in our range of vision, on upright surfaces like a wall or a train. Only few street artists (e.g. ROADSWORTH) apply their works onto the sidewalk and hardly do we, as passersby, pay attention to what can be found right there underneath our own two feet.That street art is not limited to upright surfaces only but that it’s sometimes worth paying a little more attention to what I literally walk upon, this revelation set in after I came across a piece of street art in Berlin’s Friedrichstraße. The summer weather of 2010 had been pretty mixed which tempted someone to put down the words “DAS IST DOCH KEIN WETTER”, which can be roughly translated as “DON’T CALL THAT WEATHER”. This statement simply hit a nerve, made me smile and resulted in the first picture of my series called “The Things That We Walk Upon”. The motifs of this series are not restricted to street art alone but also include, among other things, lids that can be found in the ground covering manholes or piping. Some of these lids look like pieces of art cast in iron. I was happy to discover that many cities around the globe actually pay attention to such “ordinary” things.The work that started it all...