Joseph Ford's 'Impossible Street Art' Series Imagines Urban Interventions on Large-Scale Infrastructure

Photographer Joseph Ford is developing an ongoing photographic series titled 'Impossible Street Art' that envisions street art interventions on massive industrial structures. The project involves collaborations with multiple graffiti and street artists including Antonyo Marest, Alex Senna, MadC, Skirl, Sen2, RH Doaz, Guy Denning, Chris RWK, and Joe Iurato. Ford photographs large-scale infrastructure sites such as nuclear power plants, dams, fossil fuel stations, highways, and ports. The artists then create trompe-l'œil interventions on prints of these photographs. Ford documents these altered prints on easels positioned at the original locations, creating composite images that suggest what such artworks would look like if actually installed at these sites. The series focuses on infrastructure that dominates landscapes but often restricts public access, including a nuclear facility in England's Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape area where a new plant is being built despite local opposition, the Luzzone Dam in Switzerland, the Willington Power Plant in Derbyshire, U.K., and the Jersey Turnpike in New Jersey. Ford explains that these locations are physically present in public spaces but remain inaccessible, representing imposed structures that people cannot engage with directly. By superimposing street art on these sites, the project aims to reclaim and interact with these monumental constructions while commenting on energy production systems. The work continues Ford's exploration of perception and intervention, building on previous projects like 'Invisible Jumpers.' Documentation of the series is available on Ford's Instagram account.