Every single street Zurich

Every Single Street is a global documentation project initiated by runner and artist Rickey Gates. The idea is simple: run every street of a city and document what happens along the way.

In Zurich, the project took shape as a long-term, self-imposed exploration of the city on foot. Not as a performance challenge, but as a way to experience the urban landscape from the inside – street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, without shortcuts.

What emerges is not just a map of completed routes, but a different way of seeing the city: patterns, repetitions, hidden connections and overlooked details that only reveal themselves through slow, repeated movement.

The project combined physical exploration with systematic documentation.

Routes were planned, printed, marked and tracked using GPS data, then visualised through maps and animations that gradually revealed the growing network of covered streets. Photography played a central role, capturing fragments of everyday urban life encountered along the way – textures, signs, objects, people and moments that usually pass unnoticed.

To document the journey, a dedicated Instagram account was created. What started as a personal archive quickly turned into a point of exchange with a wider, international community of runners undertaking similar projects in cities like Portland, New York, Milan and Mexico City – each interpreting Every Single Street in their own way.

The project also received media attention in Switzerland, including coverage by Tages-Anzeiger and an interview on national radio Rete Uno, bringing the idea beyond the running community and into a broader cultural context.

Photography was not a secondary layer, but a constant companion throughout the project. During each run, beyond navigating streets and tracking routes, attention remained fixed on observation. Thousands of snapshots were taken over time – often stopping for just a few seconds, capturing a single frame, and moving on again.

Running every street of a city is ultimately less about distance or endurance, and more about attention.

The project highlighted how movement can become a tool for observation, storytelling and connection – turning data into narrative, maps into memory, and repetition into meaning. It sits somewhere between sport, urban exploration and visual documentation.

Although not a commercial project, Every Single Street – Zurich remains a clear example of how structure, discipline and creative documentation can transform a simple idea into a layered, shareable experience – one that exists across physical effort, digital media and collective imagination.

Documentation, photography, data visualisation, motion, editorial storytelling