Nico Froehlich‘s photographic production stems from a question: who the city is for, who is empowered and who is marginalised?!
The Southeast London artist in recent years began to observe how his own neighborhood was gradually changing its identity, loosing some reference points and causing those who used to understand it as home, as a safe and familiar place. The phenomenon of gentrification is affecting many cities around the world, the local stores have become boutique with overpriced products and industrial spaces have been transformed into housing units sold at out-of-market prices and affordable only to an elite clientele, which end up changing the identity of entire neighborhoods.
Experiencing gentrification and the sense of disorientation it creates was one of the impetus behind this photographic series titled “The Streets he calls home” , which features working-class South Londoners and, more broadly, a multicultural community that has been rooted in the neighborhood for years and now feels it no longer lives at home.
The housing market has created inequalities that, while they have taken away places to congregate, turning public space into private space at the service of brands, have not caused the loss of certain traditions, dynamics of common behavior that Nico Froehlich continues to see and captures in his shots. A few stores remain, in the park a few children still play in the playgrounds, and in the cold concrete buildings there are still lights on. It is still Nico Froehlich’s city, for now.