Peter Friedl | Jean-Francois Chevrier

Since 1995 Peter Friedl has been photographing public playgrounds from around the world and compiling them alphabetically by reference to the names of the places. Friedls conceptual photography project engages at a discursive level with themes of socio-history, design, and urbanism. It makes no claim to being a comprehensive typology but is instead a narrative study in which the photographed playgrounds are as important as those not shown in his photographs. This is a story of the world told through the prism of its playgrounds. Peter Friedl adopts a comparative approach, reminiscent of the anthropological projects of the first half of the twentieth century, or at least his form of presentation suggests a kind of comparison: the quest for meaning at the intersection of repetition (image on image) and differentiation (the differences between the pictures).