MTA Arts & Design Kicks Off Yearlong Celebration Marking 40 Years of Bringing “Art Everywhere for Everyone”

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Episode Transcript

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MTA Arts and Design, one of the world's largest public art
collections, is marking 40 yearsof delivering public art across
the MTA system with a year long celebration to feature
commemorative projects and new work.
Started in 1985 and encompassinga broad spectrum of artistic
activity including poetry, live musical performances, posters,

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photography, digital art events and more than 400 site specific
contemporary artworks, MTA Arts and Design is a visible
expression of the Mtas commitment to promoting safety,
respect and an enhanced environment for writers.
For 40 years, MTA Arts and Design has championed art

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everywhere for everyone, creating moments of delight for
the millions of writers who relyon MTA services daily, said Tina
Vaz, Director, MTA Arts and Design.
As part of this anniversary year, we are thrilled to present
a range of special programming in station environments, subway

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cars and beyond while we continue to deliver
transformative experiences of art across the system.
The 40th anniversary celebrationkicked off on 10/7 with the
launch of a new permanent artwork and three new digital
art commissions. New permanent artwork a metal
sculpture by Jorge Luis Rodriguez, debuts as part of the

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Park Ave. Viaduct Replacement Project,
which rehabilitates historic train infrastructure and will
allow Metro North Railroad to continue providing safe and
reliable train service for generations to come.
Entitled Harlem Melodic Moments,Rodriguez S dynamic celebration
of East Harlem S rich musical legacy Salsa, bolero, Latin

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jazz, jazz, Blues, gospel, bebop, hip hop, rap and other
danceable fusion genres spans the east and West sides of Park
Ave. at E 116th St. Fabricated in aluminum the
monumental work measures 6 feet high and 96 feet long on each

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side totalling more than 1150 square feet.
New Digital Artworks, A Data Love Letter to the Subway by
Georgia Loopy, will launch on 50screens at Fulton Center and run
2 minutes at the top of every hour through December 2025.
Using data culled from sources including the MTA Open Data

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Program and online Missed Connection message boards, the
work visualizes each MTA subway line as a character with unique
qualities extracted from its related data.
Imaginatively animating each line SH length and path, Loopy
explores their interwoven encounters with commuters and
one another. By turning the prosaic familiar

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into a poetic narrative, Loopy Slove letter reveals the
connections that hum in the background of our shared urban
life. The work is realized with
Technical Support from WestfieldRise and ANC Sports.
Yesterday, October 7th, 2 new digital artworks launched on the
large scale 5 channel screens ofthe Grand Central Madison

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Concourse. Remember Gullah Island, an
alternate reality work by Jazz'sAllen featuring evocative
digital renderings, takes a visual journey to Gullah Geechee
Corridor, Atlantic coastal plains stretching from North
Carolina to Florida that holds special cultural significance to
African American communities. Embedded with notions of home

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and belonging, Remember Gullah Island invites commuters to
pause in their daily journey andconnect with stories of
departure, arrival, resilience, and cultural perseverance.
The Peace will run every six minutes through March 2026.
Video installation Breathe With Me by Kate Bay in collaboration

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with Ho Young, B EA immerses viewers in a poetic underwater
world inspired by diving with Hana'i EO women diverse from
South Korea S Jeju Island. The work explores human and
climate vulnerability as divers release their breath, walk along
the sea floor, and reach toward one another.

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Through captivating underwater footage, Bay and B EA offer an
alternative form of movement to the rush of urban life, one that
allows for intentional connection and a moment for a
deep breathing. Breathe With Me is supported in
part by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency
grant. The work will run every six
minutes through March 2026, Additional programming through

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September 2026. MTA Arts and Design will mark
its 40th anniversary with a widerange of ongoing and special
programming including new station art, poetry and posters
in subway cars and on platforms and photography exhibitions,
plus live poetry readings, special musical performances and

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more. On Wednesday, October 8th from
9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, MTA Music presents special performances by
Anthony Carrera handpan guitar, Angel Cruz, vocals and Inti and
the Moon Rumbo Flamenco folk. In recognition of Hispanic
Heritage Month as part of Open House New York Weekend, October

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17th to 19th, Arts and Design will lead for special Art
Everywhere for Everyone tours with stops along the Pelham Line
in the Bronx, the Jamaica Line, the and Grand Central Madison.
Tourgoers will have the opportunity to visit artworks at
transit stations, meet the artists, and learn about arts

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and design as commissioning process and the stories behind
each site. Specific artwork created for the
diverse communities and writers of the MTA system.
Additional programming will be announced in the coming weeks.
A special 40th anniversary logo mark, designed with in kind
support from Pentagram, will be featured in all Arts and Design

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materials through September 2026.
About MTA Arts and Design MTA Arts and Design encourages the
use of public transportation by providing visual and performing
arts in the metropolitan New York area.
The Percent for Art program is one of the largest and most
diverse collections of site specific public art in the

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world. With more than 400 commissions
by world famous, mid career and emerging artists.
Arts and Design produces graphicarts, digital art, photographic
lightbox exhibitions, as well aslive musical performances in
stations through its Music MusicUnder New York program and the
Poetry in Motion program in collaboration with the Poetry

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Society of America. It serves the millions of people
who rely upon MTA subways and commuter trains and strives to
create meaningful connections between sites, neighborhoods,
and people. About Jorge Luis Rodriguez Jorge
Luis Rodriguez arrived in New York from Puerto Rico in 1963

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following a career in advertising.
Rodriguez was educated at the School of Visual Arts and New
York University, where he earneda master's degree in sculpture.
He was an artist in residence atthe Studio Museum in Harlem in
1980 and created Growth, the first New York City percent for
Art Permanent Artwork Commission.

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In 1985, Rodriguez taught sculpture at the Kingsborough
Community College and School of Visual Arts.
His work has been displayed at the Historic Gallery just above
Midtown, El Mucio del Barrio andthe Museum of Contemporary
Hispanic Arts. About Georgia Loopy Georgia

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Loopy is an award-winning designer and a partner at
Pentagram S New York Studio. Trained as an architect at
Universita degree studi di Ferrara, she earned her PhD in
design from Polite Nico de Milano.
In 20/22 she received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts
from MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art.

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Loopy was the 2022 recipient of the National Design Award from
the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the 2025
recipient of the Compasso Doro for her visual op-ed, My Life
with long COVID. Her work is in the permanent
collection of MO MA and the Cooper Hewitt.
In her practice, Loopy and her team create vibrant visual,

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data-driven narratives across print, environmental, and
digital media that forge new insight and appreciation of
people, ideas, and organizations.
About Ghazalyn Jazzazalyn is an artist and researcher working
where fiction and reality collide through alternative
media and reindigenization. Her practice considers issues

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regarding data loss, memory restoration and ancestral
intelligence. She develops long term projects
with game engines, algorithmic processes and video art to
explore counter futures and complex human to non human
knowledge systems. As a lecturer at the New School,
she has built curricula on African and Diaspora rituals as

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speculative technology. She is the artistic director of
the experimental curatorial project Black Beyond, where she
curates exhibitions and experiences to envision
alternate realities for B lacness.
Her work has been supported by Serpentine Arts Technologies,
New Museum, Pioneer Works, Creative Time, and more.

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She has been featured in publications such as Cultured
Magazine, It's Nice That Vogue and The New Yorker.
About Kate Bay Kate Bay is a multidisciplinary immigrant
artist working between New York City and South Korea.
Her practice spans painting, site specific installations, and
sculptural works with a strong focus on material exploration

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and transformation. She experiments with layering,
casting, and peeling paint on unconventional surfaces,
creating works that embody fragmentation, memory, and
identity. Recently, inspired by diving
with Juju S Hana EOC Women, Bei has expanded her work into video

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and installation, exploring the fragile, rhythmic qualities of
water. These new mediums allow her to
investigate the porous boundaries between body,
environment, and memory. She holds an MFA from the Rhode
Island School of Design and ABFAfrom the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. She is the founder of Women S

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Cactus for the Arts and has exhibited at the Juju Museum of
Art, Brooklyn Museum, and WausauMuseum.
Her work has been supported by the Puffin Foundation, the Real
Art Award, and the Aura Lehrman Trust.
She has participated in residencies at the Golden
Foundation, Mass Mochus Studios,and the Wassaic Project.

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About Ho Young B EA Ho Hyung B EA is a multidisciplinary artist
whose work spans performance, video, sculpture, and
installation. Her practice centers on the body
S connection to trauma, labor, displacement, and healing.
Drawing from her own experiencesof migration, illness, and

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cultural dislocation, B EA reinterprets the body as a space
of both fragility and strength. Through poetic and visceral
imagery, she confronts emotionaland physical discomfort, often
embodying symbolic forms such asa hedgehog covered in thumbtacks
to explore themes of fear, intimacy, and protection.

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Veas recent work is profoundly influenced by the Hana IO, the
Sea women of Jeju Island, whose strength, silence and
interdependence with the ocean serve as metaphor and
inspiration. She studied visual arts at Seoul
National University of Technology, holds ABFA from CUNY
Hunter College, and earned her MFA in sculpture from Jeju

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National University. She has exhibited at the Jeju
Museum of Contemporary Art, JejuMuseum of Art, and the Inside
Art Center, Seoul.