We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family for your support in 2023. Picked by our followers, these photos are the heavily circulated and “liked” selections of the year – shot by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo. We’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street. Happy Holidays Everyone!

The two jaguars and a giant fire snake seen here by Brazilian artist Tito Ferrara symbolize so much for the artist – possibly providing the strengths needed to face this next chapter of global upheaval. Jaguars are seen as symbols of physical strength, prowess, and agility. Ferrara’s symbol of a fire snake surrounding these two Jaguars is not commonly referred to in ancient stories, perhaps because the artist has fashioned it to fit his hybridized pathway.

“In Brazil, especially Sao Paulo, there’s a lot of immigration from Japan since the beginning of the century – and a lot of Italian immigration as well. So I am half Japanese and half Italian and all Brazilian. And I really like to put this into my work also because Brazil, it’s this mess,”

Combining the symbols of snakes and fire, we surmise it is a powerful, potent, and dynamic form of transformation, this wending snake, one that could also be a destructive and dangerous force, both perils of misused knowledge or power. Attractive motifs or meaningful symbols, the beauty is in the complex intertwining. Ferrara told us this year that his work results from his effort to find universal truths while forging identity tools from a distinctly modern life.

“Japanese animation, botanical illustration, graffiti lettering, old-school computer graphics seen on television and film, and the Pixação he regularly encounters gracing the walls of São Paulo, his native city – all these elements coalesce to form his unique creative style. This fusion, representative of a digitally interconnected and culturally diverse world, accompanies him to cities like Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Toronto, and just before arriving in Stavanger, he was immersed in a project in Italy. The ongoing collaboration of styles and influences is as cultural as it is autobiographical.”

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