Looking at everyday built environments with an eye toward artistic adaptation, Oakoak turns exhaust pipes into elephant trunks, wild shrubs into micro-farms and more.

Pablo Picasso’s famous Don Quixote drawing, for instance, pops off the drawing board, wielding an antenna and prepared to tilt at chimneys on top of an old building.

Oakoak has a knack for seeing the hidden potential in planters, pipes manhole covers and other overlooked elements found on, around and above city streets.

An urban planner in a previous professional life, he is used to taking stock of everything around him, including those things that are rarely included in artistic endeavors, like fence post and fruit weeds.

Anything from a crooked cinder block to an ephemeral beam of light falling across the street can inspire a playful interactive scene by this quirky French interventionist, making passersby stop on the sidewalk for a moment to smile.