This is an image from ‘Urban Ballads’, a series I’m compiling that illustrates the interaction between people and street art in urban settings. In this case, Bogota, where there was no shortage of day sleepers or street art.

The freedom, or ability, to plop down and sprawl out in large pockets of the city seemed perfectly acceptable. There were no authorities rousing people from their afternoon slumbers. No second glances by passers-by. Instead, these people, who I presume to be unhoused, were simply part of the greater urban landscape. Quiet background noise. Which is what drew me to this scene.

The mural tells a story of lost jungles and forests, clear cut by the savage forces of short-term gain, forces that invariably displace people in the countryside and push them into cities, oftentimes leaving them in the streets. Broken. Or at the very least, exhausted. Here the chainsaw is the story’s beginning and the sleeping man its end.

~~

Today’s Pic du Jour, the site’s 7th(!) straight, was taken in Bogota, Colombia on 25-July-2015.