This video work by the Swiss artist Streuli reflects on the nature of everyday life in cities depicting the currents of humanity that flow through urban space.

The video was commissioned by Ikon and first screened during a group exhibition in Birmingham in 2001 followed by an off-site project close to the Pallasades Shopping Centre, also in Birmingham. The work shows smart-casual Euro types alongside Arabic women in hijabs, Indian women wrapped in saris, Hispanic teenagers in t-shirts and caps walking past Afro-American girls with braids. Everyone is purposeful, talking into mobile phones, waiting at traffic lights or crossing the street, taking photos, carrying stuff, chatting with friends. These are different people in different places, certainly, but it is not unusual in our globalised culture to see such a cosmopolitan mix, and Pallasades exemplifies this in a portrait of Birmingham, one of the youngest and most multi-cultural cities in the world. This work was presented by the Art Fund through Art Fund International. Birmingham and Walsall art galleries are working together to build up a collection exploring the metropolis and urban environment under the Art Fund International scheme.

Provenance

The artist.


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