More Than Likes is a sequence about social media personalities who’re making an attempt to do constructive issues for his or her communities.

Conrad Benner’s cellphone digicam was fastened on Nile Livingston, an artist who stood in entrance of a clean wall. Mx. Livingston would quickly paint an enormous mural, and the “canvas” could be the facet of an condo constructing overlooking a parking zone within the Gayborhood space of Philadelphia. But Mx. Livingston was having a tough time discovering the appropriate phrases for a promotional TikTok.

“We can do a thousand takes,” Mr. Benner mentioned, heat in his voice. He had chosen each the placement and the artist.

Mr. Benner, 38, runs Streets Dept, a photograph weblog and social media presence devoted to spotlighting road artists. In addition to interviewing artists on video and photographing their work, Mr. Benner selects artists for Mural Arts Philadelphia, which says it’s the nation’s largest public artwork program. In a metropolis identified for the richness of each its cultural establishments and its public art scene, Mr. Benner needs to “serve the artists in all ways.”

“He’s a bridge in the public art community,” Mx. Livingston mentioned. “He stops and slows down and observes the things around him, and he really cares about the city of Philadelphia.”

Before assembly up with Mx. Livingston, Mr. Benner’s digicam was locked on one other artist, Alexei Mansour, whom Mr. Brenner had chosen to color a mural in actual time as a part of a road competition. It was nearly 90 levels, and large audio system drowned out Mr. Mansour, a self-described “mumbler” not eager on public talking. There have been folks in all places and Mr. Mansour, too, struggled, his face turning shiny purple. (“I blacked out,” Mr. Mansour mentioned later of the second.)

Mr. Benner took management: He instructed Mr. Mansour to wave his fingers in entrance of his face to chill himself down. He switched places, first making an attempt to document Mr. Mansour in an adjoining constructing (additionally too loud) earlier than selecting a nook away from the commotion.

“One, two, three,” Mr. Benner mentioned patiently, and Mr. Mansour started to explain his work.

Mr. Mansour, whose work focuses on queer id, and his crew labored on a mural of the Greek god Dionysus, whom some contemplate an early nonbinary determine.

Mr. Benner, who grew up within the Fishtown neighborhood and sometimes wears a flat-brimmed cap and a mustache, eschews consideration when documenting artwork, directing folks’s eyes towards the artists he helps.

“My interest was always at pointing the camera outwards,” Mr. Benner mentioned. “I find deep joy and interest in learning about the world around me through public art and the artists who make it.”

Mr. Benner first printed Streets Dept in 2011. A novice to the road artwork world — Mr. Benner shouldn’t be a educated artist, and he had lengthy deliberate to enter structure — his early posts took on what he referred to as a “fanboy blog” tone.

The weblog went mainstream in June 2011 when Time journal reprinted a post about an artist who had “yarn-bombed” a metropolis prepare, wrapping seats in multicolored knit fibers. The consideration landed Mr. Benner a full-time advertising job, which he give up in 2015 after he surpassed 100,000 Instagram followers (he now has greater than 150,000 followers and one other 34,600 on TikTok) and devoted all of his focus to Streets Dept. He later began a subscription service via Patreon, a membership platform for content material creators.

In 2020, Mr. Benner started deciding on artists and places for Mural Arts, which he mentioned now supplies the majority of Street Dept’s funding, after almost a decade of unbiased curatorial work, which he nonetheless does on the side.

At the guts of all that work is a love for a metropolis that he believes is especially suited to a thriving road arts neighborhood.

“Most of the street artists who work right now are putting up on either abandoned buildings or construction materials,” Mr. Benner mentioned. “Almost every neighborhood in Philly has an abandoned building that’s a former warehouse, or abandoned homes.”

“There was this idea that, OK, industry and maybe some people left this city, so now it’s our playground,” he mentioned of road artists (town’s inhabitants declined from about two million within the Nineteen Sixties to about 1.5 million in 2021). “If you leave a building abandoned, it’s going to get filled with art.”

Hours after filming with Mx. Livingston and Mr. Mansour, Mr. Benner popped by a free wall house for artists on a busy road nook, the place a person was portray a girl’s face. Mr. Benner had seen the artist’s work for months however had by no means met him. He was Shaun Durbin, an up-and-coming native artist who had tried to get Mr. Benner’s consideration earlier on the reside portray. He agreed to let Mr. Benner function his work.

Mr. Benner pulled out his digicam. “This is so kismet,” he mentioned. His favourite a part of his work is assembly new artists and sharing their work with the lots. “Why else are we in this world if not to just look around and be excited by what’s around us?”