The Tattoos of Humanity

Whenever I visit a city or venture to a new place, I’m always on the lookout for murals, graffitti, or the scribbled notes for society that people leave in plain sight. In a way, this is a sign that there’s life to a community, a building, a district in a way that the cold sterility of steel and glass doesn’t engender.

Sure, you can take issue with my definition of “life” here; after all, there are plenty of buildings in various stages of decomposition that have been tagged and coloured in communities long since departed. But, that’s just it, isn’t it? The canvas these buildings still offered, even in death, was worth it to someone, somewhere and that’s life.

At some point, I’m sure I’ll have enough collected works to put together a small photo book on the various images I’ve taken from around the world but, in the interim, you’ll have to just view them here.

København is ripe with different stories and displays of humanity. From the very visible to the “tucked in an alleyway,” there are these messages to a populace that wanders by each day. I wonder if there’s a certain tolerance for these things, in the way that a body builds a tolerance for caffeine or other drugs. There’s a…