Therefore, in the autumn of 2006, I went on my first discovery-trip. This would lead me to Dresden, Prague, Bratislava, Vienna and Budapest.
Soon, my attention shifted from the benches to the life on them. The faces, the intimacy, the emotions, the situations caught more and more my attention and fascinated me. I became a voyeur, but I kept the excuse for myself, that I was simply studying the benches in the capitals of europe.
I was of course and I surely became an expert about benches! I know what a bench needs to become attractive, where benches will be monopolize with homeless people and why, why some benches are "functioing" and Others not.
A connection between culture - and especially political culture- and benches appears obvious. Where the gap between poor and rich is the biggest, the bench lobby seems to be dwindling. The issue of affording free public rest areas become problem cases in our very much controlled public space. Benches are there left to decay, or removed and replaced with some benches designed so that nobody wants to sit long -and surely not sleep- on them!