Street Yogi: The tiny works of art decorating the street signs of Berlin
There’s nothing you can’t find on the streets of Berlin, Germany, which is why it’s the most exciting and accessible major city in Europe.
The likes of Milan, London and Paris have just as busy cultural spheres, but the German capital has an unbridled charm to it thanks to the number of wonderful little things left out in the open. Things like their Street Yogi, lovingly crafted little creatures so tucked away that hundreds of thousands of Berliners probably miss them in the hustle and bustle of their daily commute to work.
This is despite the fact that they’re standing in broad daylight. Literally, they’re just a few feet above everyone’s heads, standing on the street signs of Berlin and, strangely enough, doing their best downward dog. That’s right, they’re not called Yogi for any predillection they might have for pick-a-nick baskets, they’re called that because the vast majority of them have been shaped into yoga poses, then placed right in the heart of Berlin for all to see.
They’re made by a man who has devoted his life to the practise. Josef Foos is a yoga practitioner and acupressure therapist who started his street art project in 2009. He explained his rationale for the project to The Berliner, saying, “The world is full of negative images, news, stories, things you see on the streets, I wanted to give pleasure and positivity for the future, and you can interpret everything into it. We perceive everything around us, then filter out what we consciously perceive. It goes straight to the brain and then does something to us.”
He is, of course, not alone in doing projects like this. Foos was actively inspired by the work of Slinkachu, a British artist whose street art project, Little People, where tiny plastic figurines are posed and photographed on the street interacting with life-sized objects, is a clear precursor to Street Yogi. However, Foos didn’t want his project to be something posted online, he wanted it to be something real people could see in person. After he realised that a number of his friends collected wine corks, finally, the last piece of the puzzle was placed, and he started the Street Yogi project.
Over a decade and a half later, Foos is still going strong. It was true that in 2009, if you looked anywhere in the world, you’d probably find something negative. Something infuriating at best and depressing at worst. You might have noticed that in 2026, it’s only gotten worse. The need for simple joys in our day-to-day life is somehow even more pressing, so Foos is still hard at work on the project and has learned a lot about street art in the meantime.
For example, at first, he was a lot more experimental about where to put his creations. Today, as he explained to The Berliner, he knows “that telephone boxes don’t work at all because of maintenance, and schools [don’t] either because the kids take them down quickly or cyclists knock them down.”
He’s also branched out of yoga, with his Yogis now dancing and climbing rather than just assuming a yoga position. In places that Foos is confident no one else will be able to get to, he now adds groups of them getting up to all kinds of mischief.
At a time when existing in this world feels more frightening and aggravating than ever, let’s hope there are many more people around than just Josef Foos who are committed to putting small, simple joys into people’s lives. If, of course, they know where to look.