Through the City, Again

© VG Bild-Kun­st, Bonn, 2020; Pho­to Angela Siev­er, Cour­tesy of Ger­hard Lang and Galerie Albrecht in Berlin

The Mobile Zebra Cross­ing is a portable device that can be deployed when encoun­ter­ing unwieldy street sit­u­a­tions. Its pur­pose is to make it easy for pedes­tri­ans to tra­verse in places where there are no legal cross­ing options. How­ev­er, because of the size and cor­re­spond­ing weight of the car­pet-cross­ing, it can­not be used by one per­son alone. It takes many who must be will­ing to car­ry and roll. The cross­ing of an oth­er­wise uncross­able street con­se­quen­tial­ly becomes a col­lec­tive action, a kind of protest march. While this arti­fact may seem play­ful, it also points to the stub­born­ly per­sis­tent seg­re­ga­tion of var­i­ous groups in urban space. Cel­e­brat­ing the most sus­tain­able of all modes of trans­porta­tion, the Mobile Zebra Cross­ing engages in ques­tions about how a just city for pedes­tri­ans might look.


Project

The Mobile Zebra Crossing


Artists

Ger­hard Lang with Hel­mut Aebis­ch­er, Ruth Jureczek and numer­ous walk­ers and artists


Year

1993


Loca­tion

Kas­sel, Germany



Ger­hard Lang, The Mobile Zebra Cross­ing (1993). A pro­ces­sion of 600 peo­ple moves through the streets, back­yards and park­ing lots in the cen­ter of Kas­sel and, in hon­or of the founder of the sci­ence of walk­ing, Lucius Bur­ck­hardt, rolls out the car­ried car­pet wher­ev­er nec­es­sary to cross large routes. © VG Bild-Kun­st, Bonn, 2020; Pho­to Angela Siev­er, Cour­tesy of Ger­hard Lang and Galerie Albrecht in Berlin
© VG Bild-Kun­st, Bonn, 2020; Pho­to Angela Siev­er, Cour­tesy of Ger­hard Lang and Galerie Albrecht in Berlin
© VG Bild-Kun­st, Bonn, 2020; Pho­to Angela Siev­er, Cour­tesy of Ger­hard Lang and Galerie Albrecht in Berlin