Found

Last week, I popped into the Photographers Gallery at lunchtime. I hadn't been there for a while, which is shocking considering how close it is to my office, but I have been so busy recently that lunchbreaks have become somewhat of a luxury (for me anyway - the Colleague still manages on average of 2 per day - he's taking mine as well as his own, ).

Anyway, the exhibition by Joachim Schmid was very interesting, in particular the section 'Bilder von der Strasse', which was a collection of photographs Schmid has found in the street. Apparently, he has found thousands since 1982 on his travels in various countries - lots of passport photographs, some pieces of torn up photographs, some poorly taken pictures, all discarded. He picks the photographs for the exhibition at random, by giving each one a number.

I found this fascinating - for a start, I was amazed at how many photographs he'd found - its not something I recall ever seeing thrown away myself, but perhaps that's because I've not been looking for them, although I will now. I am very interested in what people have thrown away, hence my love of the Abandoned Couches blog I always look at abandoned furniture in the street, wondering if I could take it in, find a new use for it - so far I never have done.

The OH has a thing for finding hats - he frequently brings home a hat he's found on the street or on the train. He doesn't wear them - he just washes them and stored them away like a hat-crazed Womble. So I was telling him about this exhibition and predictably he questioned whether such a thing really counted as art. His argument being that it would be like him putting on a display of his hats at London Fashion Week. I'm not sure it really is the same thing but perhaps it might be worth him trying it?