Yogamaya von Hippel & Simon Bromley, “Street Pussy”

Yogamaya von Hippel and Simon Bromley’s zine, Street Pussy, is a project aimed at documenting cats on the streets of Wales and London. Recently, the pair published their first set of zines, the initial series made up of five volumes. Each issue’s theme is a different color cat in varying positions on the streets. Accompanying the cat’s photo is an illustrated map pinpointing the location where it was seen. Since the project began in 2010, Von Hippel and Bromley have photographed nearly 700 cats. Yogamaya was kind enough to send me Volume 1, featuring pictures of tortoiseshell cats.

The zine is obviously cheeky and humorous, the name adding a certain edge that sets the project apart from the masses of cute cat pictures on the internet. But Street Pussy is an art endeavor to be taken seriously as well. The zine gives away little information (the map is just a line drawing, with no street names or descriptive features), denoting that the cats pictured could be anywhere–strays–or anyone’s–pets on the loose–out-of-doors for any number of reasons. And the photos aren’t just snapshots of cute cats; Von Hippel and Bromley keep fundamentals of photography and famous street photographers in mind while composing their pictures. It’s a fun and productive project for those of us who enjoy taking pictures of other people’s animals we see in our day-to-day life. I hope to keep up with the next volumes, set to feature kitties of the black, ginger, black and white, and tabby varieties.

Follow along with the Street Pussy images at streetpussy.tumblr.com or get a copy of the zine in the Etsy shop.