“Don’t step on the cracks”- Paris 2020,

These two works are from a series of 92 drawings produced through psychogeography - the exploration of the urban environment whilst walking - and in particular through my obsession with pavement cracks. Before Covid-19 cut short a 92 day residency in Paris, I drifted through this unknown city, without a planned route, guided only by a street level gaze upon the discarded details of a local everyday. The pavement cracks looked like re-imaged city street maps or anatomical drawings of arteries and veins; simultaneously presenting micro and macro views of the city. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the winding streets of Paris were paved with cobblestones. Haussmann’s redevelopment of the city paved over the cobbles; enabling smoother wheeled travel, but also, a defence against citizen uprisings, which previously had used the cobbles as weapons against the state. Pavement cracks are part of the geography of any city. Personally they represent a metaphorical journey of life.