Client: Valley Metro Rail, Inc., Phoenix, AZ

Overview

I have been invited to create artworks for a station at a new light rail line. Artworks will be installed Nov. 2018. The station serves a residential neighbourhood and in my proposal on top of 2 giant kitchen tables a human figure is sitting and welcoming everyone, stretching his neck enormously, surrounded by typical domestic items, such as a cozy chair and a table-lamp. At night, all (tables and sculptures) will be illuminated from within and glow, giving it a fairy tale effect. Budget $235,000.

Goals

The station serves a residential neighborhood. All these artworks originate from everybody’s home. They are all recognizable as everyone’s home, giving the traveler an "I am coming home" moment. But, there’s something's different, in a way that one is inclined to fancy stories with. And while waiting for the train to arrive, you can travel into you own fantasy and find out where it will bring you.
Travelling from and to home in the physical sense, can become traveling from and to home into your fantasy.
There can be something magical right here where you live, right in your own home, your own neighborhood, and your own train station.
How far does one have to travel? The magic is already around you here, right in your own very familiar environment.

Process

I work together with Valley Metro Rail, with the RACC (art-)committee, with the architects who design the stations, with the engineers, who design the railway line, with the City of Mesa (AZ), where the station will be, and we reach out to the public, the residents in the neighborhoods that will be served by the new light rail station, through public hearings and so on.

Additional Information

The artworks are integrated into the architectural designs of the station. For instance, on each end of the station platform are the ticket machine area's. They need shade-bringers. The shade-bringers are designed by the architects to look like a giant kitchen table, Table and artworks on top of them become "one".