STRASSENTEPPICH

(STREET CARPET), 2014

The programme of Haussmannisation taken up in the Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin – meaning the expansion and straightening the streets of Paris so that troops may patrol the streets and, at the same time, that the setting up roadblocks is more difficult – was and is used to control the population. Nevertheless, the Haussmannisation could not prevent the streets in Paris and elsewhere today, from becoming a predestined site for political and social events and thus a public space par excellence.

In the series of works STREET CARPET, aerial images of arteries from around the world are connected to form a branched network of roads. Thus, the different uses of roads overlap: the street as a place of transit and of traffic congestion, as well as of urban public life, political rallies, demonstrations or parades.