delight
Commuters waiting for the 8:14 now find art instead
Nobody comes to a train station to see art. That's the idea.
NJ Transit has now installed temporary art exhibitions at eight commuter stations across New Jersey, the latest a show called "Tracks Through Time: Movement, History and Human Connection" at Morris Plains Rail Station. The program, called the TRANSITional Art Project, began in 2019 as a pilot at Newark Penn Station and has grown in partnership with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The Morris Plains show looks at 250 years of American history through railroads, in the stations where people still ride those rails to work. It features photography by Beyti Barbaros and a three-panel mural installation by Catherine Thurston. The commuter who glances up while waiting for the 8:14 didn't come for a gallery, which is rather the point. "Public art has the power to transform the places we move through every day into places where we can pause," said Danielle Bursk of the State Arts Council. The project also pays its artists, offering stipends that public art rarely comes with.
