Easy Rider Road Show Berlin—Paris
The Wild and Inspiring Side of Bicycle Culture
An Exhibition about the bicycle as a Utopia
From May 16 to June 2, 2024, the Easy Rider Road Show will be touring Paris as a prologue to the Summer Olympics.
The Easy Rider Road Show illuminates the wild, subversive side of bicycle riding and the strong bonds that it can create between people. Using images taken from the margins of bike riding culture, the exhibit seeks to inspire utopian thinking and address the question of where the bicycle can take us.
The Easy Rider Road Show presents the bicycle as a vehicle for collective action, the promise of freedom, and as a lucky talisman. And it does so in a very unusual way: as a mobile exhibition on five converted cargo bikes. Unfolded like the solar sails of a spaceship, they turn into a photo exhibition in the middle of the urban space.
The photographs depict the stories of subcultures and communities which perceive the world through their bicycles. The images take us around the globe: from a yearly festival of self-built bikes in New York to a youth movement of cyclists who ride across London doing wheelies—with their front wheels in the air. In Mexico City former gang members have discovered a love for extravagant bicycles, and in Berlin punks battle each other on tall bikes in a sort medieval knight’s tournament.
Bicycling is not just a form of locomotion. Bike culture is in constant interaction with fashion, music, design, politics, city planning and transportation concepts. Biking is both a way of life and form of protest. The more people ride bicycles, the more changes can be made. The bicycle has the potential to change life in the city and ultimately, change the city itself.
FotografInnen
↣ Tod Seelie
is an American photographer who has photographed across the -United States and in twenty-five other countries across the five continents. His work reflects on his own life, which often intersects with what are often called “subcultures.” He has exhibited internationally and published a monograph, BRIGHT NIGHTS, with Prestel Publishing in 2013.
↣ Julie Glassberg
was born in Paris, France. After studying graphic design, she decid-ed to turn her passion for photography into a career and moved to New York. She is par-ticularly interested in the diversity of world cultures, subcultures, underground scenes and social misfits and outsiders. Her first small edition book on this -project was shortlisted by Paris Photo in 2018, followed by another edition of the book B.L.B.C.N.Y in 2023 with the independent French publisher Serious Publishing.
↣ Christophe Gateau
is a Berlin-based photo and video journalist. Before he began his -training as a photographer at the Lette Verein Berlin, his interest in storytelling took him to Albania and Kosovo for a year in order to document the culture, people, and stories from the region. In 2017, he started a two-year internship as a photojournalist at the German Press Agency (dpa).
↣ Jeoffrey Guillemard
was born in 1986 in Nancy, France. He has been living in Mexico since 2006. He beganas a self-taught photographer and then, in 2014, followed the EMI-CFD photo-jour-nalism training in Paris. Focusing on contemporary social issues, his documentary work explores topics such as migration, sexuality, religious practices, and social movements.
↣ Adam Corbett
is a photographer and filmmaker based in London. Driven by his desire to capture the defining moment, his work is centered around movement, culture and identity. Documenting projects such as BikeStormz, Adam uses his photography to champion and support young people and the communities who use sport and movement as a way to engage and create change. Inspired by the relationships he explores through his camera, Adam has worked on philanthropic projects with charities and organisations in the UK, India, Ethiopia, Brazil, and the US.
Kooperationspartner
↣ Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin
The Easy Rider Road Show in Berlin 2021/2022 was a cooperation with the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin.
↣ Partners
The exhibition was realized with the help of sponsors and the active support of our partners.
Easy Rider Road Book
A Tour through the Wild
and Inspiring Side
of Bicycle Culture
Photos by:
Tod Seelie
Julie Glassberg
Christophe Gateau
Adam Corbett
Jeoffrey Guillemard
Edited by:
Anke Fesel und Chris Keller
Hatje Cantz Verlag
September 2023, 192 Pages, 160 Ills.
ISBN: 978-3-7757-5570-2