During the last few days I have been going through the archives looking for material for the forthcoming online Walking/Photography exhibition at Encounters Gallery. Whilst doing so I came across some photos of street art in Adelaide, South Australia that I had made around 2011 whilst I was walking the city.
I was living in the city at the time and my daily walks with the poodles would be around the CBD and the parklands. These walks would be meanderings--to do with exploration, a way of accommodating myself, of feeling at home. It was a way I got to know the city. Walking into dead ends, or reluctantly retracing my steps, didn't matter to me because this was part of the process of exploration.
Both of these photos were made around the same time and they were in Franklin Street in Adelaide's CBD. Unfortunately, I do not know the artists of any of these three works of street art.
Walking the city was more than just a way of getting from one location to another--ie., going from home to work. Walking meant a way of being in the urban world as well as a mapping of the city as in transition from an industrial to a post industrial city. An everyday activity such as dog walking enables and shapes a creative photographic practice.
This kind of walking was a reaction to the dominance of the car that made parts of Adelaide city an unpleasant space to be in, because of the noise and fumes. Walking for the sake of the walk was all but lost in industrial Adelaide. When we walked we did so mostly for transportation, to get somewhere. We still walk but it is not our main mode of moving around. We now primarily travel in the car. Vehicles had eclipsed walking. The primary mode of walking in the indusrtrial city was reduced to window shopping.