Some cities are perfect for parkour. When I entered Cali, I noticed quite a few structures that would be great for jumping and climbing on, yet I had no idea that the parkour scene here is as big as it is. It seems that not only is Cali a great (the best) city for salsa, it’s also amazing for those who love to venture in urban spaces.

Marcel Jaworski (31) is a Polish-Venezuelan cinematographer, photographer and Marcelino – a professional juggler. I travelled with Marcel on the coast of Ecuador for one week and whilst at it, learned the fundamentals of his profession as a street light juggler. On top of observing his vivid and short performances on the streets, I interviewed him on what is needed for earning a living on the streets.

As I’ve written many times before, streets and people working on the streets fascinate me. I’m not such a fan of touristic sights (although the city tour I did with my host Inico in Quito was lovely!), but rather love getting lost in a city, either interacting with locals or observing them and the way they act. This time, what caught my attention in Quito, Ecuador, were the shoe polishers at the Plaza de la Independencia.

I shot this video three years ago, and today I suddenly thought about this man and his incredible skill of making animals and roses out of carrots and beetroots (maybe because I’m suffering from food poisoning in Peru and am dreaming about anything fresh!). I was mesmerized then, and still am now. The most troubling part of it all is that all this vegetable artist would receive for his work was donations — and sometimes these donations were worth no more than 20 cents. 

Upon my stay in Asunción more than six months ago, I had the great honor to interview one of the first street artists of Paraguay, Oz Montanía. Now, in La Paz, I’ve had the immense honor to encounter and interview one of the very first and still rare female street artists of Bolivia: Norka aka Knorke Leaf. I met her as she was putting up an exhibition at the Alliance Française.

I’ve always been intrigued by individuals living from the streets. Artists, buskers, craftsmen, salesmen, shoe polishers and all those nearly invisible eccentrics for whom the streets represent an endless playground of opportunities. Not only, because there’s usually a lot of “hidden” talent on the streets, but also because people on the streets are the ones who really see it all. Streets are where everything happens. 

Oz Montanía, an internationally acclaimed illustrator and street artist from Asunción, is one of the first people to ever have painted on the walls of his home country back in the late 1990s. After that a lot has happened, but only very recently has street art began to gain ground in the eyes of common Paraguayans. And we owe a lot of that to Oz.