 Hello and welcome. I'm Emily or I'm the assistant curator of modern and contemporary American design at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. And we're so happy you could join us today for this panel, mind the gap women designing for transit. Our discussion today will chase the increasing impact of women in the design of the transit experience in the early 20th century in London and New York. Our panel includes those professions who have intersected with this relevant topic in meaningful ways. And we are happy to invite them to share their creative perspectives with us today. We are thrilled to welcome New York based artist, Catherine Bradford, Ye Ling Chen, deputy director for MTA Arts and Design and Zorian Clayton, assistant curator of prints at the Victorian Albert Museum. A few housekeeping items before we begin. We welcome you to take part in the discussion following our presentations today by submitting your questions in the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. Closed captioning is also available during this talk. So to turn on the subtitles, simply navigate to the bottom of your Zoom screen and select the icon that says CC. This program is in coordination with our current exhibition up at the Museum, Underground Modernist E. McKnight Cowher that I co-curated along with Caitlin Condell, associate curator and head of the drawings, prints and graphic design department at Cooper Hewitt. This exhibition is on view through April 10, 2022 so if you are in New York, we hope you will be able to visit the museum to see the show. The exhibition celebrates the career of the remarkable designer, E. McKnight Cowher, who is a pioneer of commercial art, a profession known today as graphic design. This slide shows a view of the opening gallery of the exhibition and the perspective highlights the beautiful exhibition designed by Lucy and Roberts Plus and universal design, both London-based designers who were in charge of the exhibition's show, design and graphic production. The cutout opening mimics the circular tunnels of London's tube as Cowher was the leading artist for the London Underground between the two World Wars. And the four works that you see on either side of this entrance cutout are the first four posters that he designed for the London Underground in 1915. And each poster shows how Cowher experimented stylistically during this period with such a great range of color, form, pattern and line. The exhibition also tells the story of the groundbreaking textile designer, Marion Dorn, Cowher's partner in life and work, who would later become his wife. But the London Underground was also a client for Dorn and she designed upholstery fabrics like chashom that you see at the left, the right here, sorry, excuse me, in 1937. And some of her patterns remain so popular and had such contemporary eye appeal that they were used in train cars for decades following the original commission. Her remarkable career is the inspiration for our panel today. Dorn had worked in San Francisco and Paris and New York before landing in London and establishing her career as an independent designer there. She was a savvy businesswoman and her knowledge of manufacturing techniques allowed her to shift between doing printed fabrics to woven upholstery. And she had a keen understanding of material and technique. Vibrant woven textiles like Avis seen at the right were part of what made her reputation in the 1930s in London. And in 1934, she even established her own business, Marion Dorn Limited. At the left, we can see how she was responsible for the own graphics for the publicity of her business. Her studio handled everything from interior design to production to distribution and the actual publicity for the works. She remains best known as the architect of floors as she was dubbed. She created a series of remarkable rug designs that filled hotel lobbies, private apartments, country homes and ocean liners. In 1936, the London Underground underwent a complete redesign from the station architecture to the publicity used to the upholstery fabrics and the interior design of the train cars. And they particularly identified these new upholstery fabrics called maquettes as crucial to the new design experience of the underground at that time. And Marion Dorn was one of several designers commissioned to carry forth this mission to bring modernism to the masses in this way. The designers received a brief that was very specific for this upholstery design. The textiles were meant to be durable and high dirt, but also bring a cheerful atmosphere to the train cars. And as a result, the color palette of a number of Dorn's designs actually includes a good bit of brown and mimics the color of dirt itself. But Dorn's textiles at this time, as I mentioned, were seen in important modern interiors across England. And with this commission, the London Underground really became yet another design space where the public could appreciate and experience her modern designs in their everyday routine. This example being the everyday routine of commuting. One of Dorn's most popular patterns was a stylized leaf design known as Collendale, which is seen here at the right in a sample in the collection of the London Transport Museum and at the left actually installed in a trailer train trailer car in the 1930s. And this was produced in a variety of colors and interestingly enough, first in a light green and later in a dark green to better hide the dirt and be a more durable color palette for this kind of rough everyday use of the commuting public. The pattern here shows both the influences of nature and classicism that Dorn would return to throughout her career. And many of her patterns were used on train lines for decades. And here we see her Shasham pattern being fitted to an upholstery covering a seeding element with upholstery well into the 1950s, which is a really good testament to her forward thinking design and her approach to the broad use of modern design. It's also worth mentioning the work of Enid Marks, who was yet another woman, a part of the original commission that the London Underground put out in the 1930s for new maquette designs. And these textiles were crucial to the particular design identity of each line. And here we can see her bell sized design of 1936, which was used on the metropolitan and district lines. Marks ran her own textile design studio where she used mostly natural dyes and hand blocked her designs to produce the final result. But when she received the commission in the 1930s to do these upholstery designs for London Transport, she made the switch to machine production. And here in a manufacturer wove the final design that she had drawn by hand. She wrote that the project was great fun because there was a very strict brief. The seating needed to look fresh at all times, even after brick layers had sat on it. So there was a camouflage problem. The design therefore had to be bold, but because it was for a moving vehicle should not be dazzling to passengers. So at this time there was the use of artificial lights in these train cars and sometimes it would reverberate in strange and unsettling ways for passengers. So designers had to be mindful of the visual density and busyness of the patterns that they were making so as to not make the motion of the train car problematic for the commuters on it. And in looking at Cooper Hewitt's collection, I just wanted to provide one final example of design for transit upholstery to kind of close this close this story circle in a way. Cooper Hewitt's collection carries this narrative up to the present and the tradition and importance of commissioning these mock-up fabrics continues today. London Transport has continuously done these commissions since the 1930s when Dorn was a part of the original group. And in 2010, designers Harriet Wallace Jones and Emma Sewell of Wallace and Sewell won a competition to design a new mock-up for the London Underground. And the brief will sound familiar. Transport for London's call for the project was very specific in terms of durability and design. They asked for patterns to have small repeats, bold and be bold in their elements, but at the same time use no more than four colors and do whatever they could in the way of their line and form to mitigate the effects of wear and vandalism. And Wallace and Sewell's design perfectly met this brief. The resulting design barman seen here is based on four London landmarks, the London Eye, big Ben's clock face, the towers of London Bridge, and the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, each simplified down to an outline of simple geometric forms. And the pattern was in fact named barman after Christian barman, who was in charge of the first commission for Maquettes for the Tube in 1936. And one of the first people to think about the importance of seat upholstery as a part of this cohesive brand identity. So now that my story has come full circle, I am looking forward to passing things along to the rest of our panelists. I'd like to invite next to join the discussion Catherine Bradford, New York based artist whose paintings contain symbolic imagery such as swimmers and superheroes. She was recently commissioned to do five ceramic murals by the MTA Arts and Design, which are installed at the First Avenue subway stop on the L line in New York City. So Catherine over to you. Thank you for that introduction Emily. I am indeed a new member of Women Designing for Transit, because the project my commission just opened this fall in New York City. We had a launch in September. Can I have the first slide? This shows a mural that I did based on one of my paintings of a person standing in a garden. And I love that the original tile work of the subway is showing on top and looks quite good with it, I thought. This greets anyone who goes down into the First Avenue subway for the L line, which goes straight to the Bedford Avenue stop in Brooklyn. I jumped at the opportunity to do as a design for it, although I'd never done public art, because I take this subway every day back and forth from my painting studio to Manhattan. Next slide. This is a close up showing the tile work. This was glass mosaics all fabricated at Mayor of Munich in Germany. I was worried that my painting wouldn't translate well, but in fact, I think they did a fabulous job not really imitating my brushstrokes but playing paying close attention to the light and color. Next slide. In fact, I was encouraged to make the sky a little darker to go with that the blue that we see often in the subway with the numbers kind of the subway blue, which I think was a good suggestion. This shows a person who could be male or female. So I left off the hair. I thought that would be, well, a little bit of mystery, maybe a little provocative. Next slide. I did five murals, and I was told right from the beginning that three of them would be in stairwells where people going up and down would have to look up to see the image. And immediately what popped into my head was my Superman flying in the air. So I kind of redesigned one of my paintings to fit this space and asked for next slide for a very kind of plain background as if it were air. Now, a lot of the designs in the New York subway relate to the neighborhood that they're in. And I didn't have the vocabulary as an artist to do that. I use my own vocabulary, which already was superheroes and figures. Next slide. The second superhero, and I'm standing there with a bunch of flowers because this is the day that we launched the project. It was very exciting. And we got to make little speeches. And I did it with Marcel Zama, who did four huge amazing murals for the Bedford Avenue station. I'll show you a picture of that in a second. This is another flying superhero. I'm hoping that whoever descends into the subway gets inspired by these images feels a little lighter on their feet, feels a little whimsy, takes them away from the rather hectic world of being a traveler on the subway. Next slide. This is just a close up of a superhero figure in tile. Next slide. And the other superhero figure. I didn't call them supermen, so we wouldn't get in trouble with patent. Next slide. This is a long mural also at First Avenue, which shows a group of people gathered celebrating. I don't mean to make any connection with real people. Although I think the group that takes the subway again and again is full of pretty wild, interesting creatives that go back and forth from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Next slide. This is a closer view This also was taken from one of my paintings, not a big painting. I had to kind of Photoshop it so that it would fit in this space. Next slide. There's the painting that this came from. I'm in my studio and I'm pulling the original painting out of the racks. And then on the other half of this image, you can see the interpretation that the glass mosaics made of what I did. Next slide. I love this picture. You can see the artwork peeking up, beckoning you to come up the stairs. Next slide. This is a picture of Mayor of Munich workshop making the superhero murals. They were enormous, really. And the young women who worked on them were all from Italy. All the tiles were made in Italy of that famous Italian glass. Next slide. I went over there with my spouse and we had a fascinating time watching them work and learning a lot about how my that was my design and they had to translate it into into these. They didn't call some of them tiles, they called some of them cakes of ceramic. Next slide. And you see in the top of this that there's a mirror. So these young women who were fabricating these had to keep looking up to see the entire image. It was impossible to see at ground level. Yet they wanted to get a distant view of it, which is the exact view that the travelers in the subway would get. So I was pretty pleased and tickled that this was turning out this way. Next slide. These are the little chunks of glass, beautiful colors. And I think the blue in the middle of that row on the bottom is what I chose to be the ground for that first slide I showed. Next slide. This was on the day of the launch. I was given a microphone and said a few words about what I hoped the travelers in the subway would get from my work, mostly inspiration. Interestingly enough, Marcel Zama next slide, who is standing there with me in the blue shirt in front of his mural, which is at the Bedford Avenue stop. He had the same impulse, not to reflect exactly what was going on in the neighborhood, but to go into a very fantastical world. I think this was based on work he did for the for the New York City Ballet. And so we are just cutting up being dancers on that day. Next slide. Here's one of Marcel's beautiful murals that I see every day because I take this Bedford Avenue stop daily and it makes all the difference in the world that lights up the place. You stop thinking about whatever daily concerns you are and you kind of celebrate this explosion of color. Next slide. I was quite inspired by Elizabeth Murray, who I had seen her work for years and years. She decided to do this coffee cup. And I loved how she used the architecture and had the cup spanning this arch. I thought it was so clever. And she said that she felt it was appropriate because the people using this stop would have just had their morning cup of coffee. Now, that might seem a little far away from subway life, but it helped give me the impetus to put superheroes and and bold people in in a ballgame standing in a garden. Next slide. I think that's my last slide. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Catherine for sharing the story of the development of your work for the MTA subway system. And we're now thrilled to turn it over to Ye-Ling Chen, deputy director for MTA Arts and Design. Thank you so much. And thank you, Catherine, for such a great presentation. And then sort of bringing Elizabeth Murray's project. I feel like I'm also one of the portraits, like kind of carrying that inspiration and throughout my entire career. Let's say it's very, it's such a great pleasure to be here with you all today, as part of the Kupo Yui Hewitt's educational program to celebrate the Mac Nines exhibition, along with the great, talented work by Marianne. I really enjoyed that show. So with five minutes, it was a great challenge for me to put together a presentation. We have so far 350 commissions through our permanent person for our projects, close to half of which are by women others. So it's very difficult, but I try. So let me share my presentation with you all. There you go. Can you all see it? Yes. Great. So Arts and Design is the art department within the MTA. We introduced a wide range of programs, including the permanent person for art, digital art, graphic art, light box exhibits, poetry and motion, and music under New York. Super kudos to the impressive bodies of posters designed by Edward McKnight-Coffer for London Underground. Arts and Design too has a robust poster programs. Here I want to give a shout out to Lydia Brescia who managed these great programs for Arts and Design. We commissioned graphic artists to create posters that celebrated mass transit in New York area every year. This poster can be seen at subway stations or in the subway carts. These are the two 2020 commissions for posters that are by graphic artists by CJ Han to the lab and Paulo de Campos to the right. They all use either Central Park or Mita Manhattan as their as a kind of destination. These are the longer poster that we call art cart. They can be seen in subway carts. From the top is a small big world by Cleo Nick Piozaca. In the middle, Redbird Reave by Vanessa Bentley Newton on the bottom, Birdhouse Subways by John Parr. So next, I want to just go through seven women artists project just to give you all a glimpse of how these artists each through their own creative approach created artwork that tell the story for the people and about the place. Long Island Railroad Broadway station here in Flushing Queens, it serves a dense population of Asian Americans. So when Jin Sheng was working on her proposal, she was inspired by these mountains of broken ceramic charts during her visit to a county village in South Korea. So in Korea, partners customarily would sort of break those vessels if they are deemed imperfect. So ultimately, it's created like mountains of broken charts to be able to use these broken pieces for her projects. We work with her and, gratefully, the village donated three tons of sell down charts, and then have them shipped to upstate New York, where the fabricator is located. From here, you can see that the whole process of sorting through those charts and the break for the fabrication was like an archaeological finds. Now, the artwork stand at a busy intersection in Queens, reminding all of us of their distant homeland and the new life that's transformed here. Next project is titled The Dicks by Kelvin. It's a very unique project for the Knickerbocker station on the M line in Brooklyn. Kelvin is a certified welder. She used a plasma cutter. And for this project, she literally handcuffed all the steel plates into intricate lace like patterns in the form of steel shovels. The artwork now have a life in resume the life in the station and connecting the station with the architectural arch and the ornamental details often seen in the station's Bushwick neighborhood. And at the same time, blurring that boundary between domesticity and industry. The bus depot in Harlem is named Mother Clara Hale bus depot to honor Mother Hale who for 50 years care for children who are either sick or come from Brooklyn home. Similarly, when she next met was developing her proposal for these projects, she walked the neighborhood multiple times. And one day she picked up this child's drawing to the left, depicting a girl by the bus stop. And that become a source of color inspiration for her projects. We also later on conducted the drawing classes for students at PS244. Now the final artwork in colorful painted cloche was translated into mosaic glass that centers on a modern childlike figure embracing each other in an abstracted garden. The students drawing were also included in the glass portion of the artwork for the for the depot building on the sides. Now, moving along to the rebuilt subway station in World Trade Center that was destroyed by 9 11 and Hamilton created chorus that frame the station's new platform covering over 4,000 square feet of the space. And it's totally integrated into the station's architectural design. The artwork is a field of woven text taken from the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the US Declaration of Independence. Cut letters was very slightly by three millimeter, I believe, set against the the marble backgrounds, creating a wide on wide textile service that invites the writer to touch the text as they read along, creating a very powerful and at the same time intimate meaningful encounter. These underground crossings of text and people together form an underground chorus reminding us all of the civic ideal and foundational quality of life, which is so universal and so important. At Penn Station on 123 lines, Diana El-Hadi created two large mosaic artworks, one of which is on the 60 foot long south wall, as you see here, that El-Hadi intended a dialogue for between her artwork and what's the past of at Penn Station and currently an earlier projects that's still at Penn Station by Andrew Leicester that we commissioned. So this is a day and night figure who was who used to stand at the I believe the facade of original Penn Station building, but was later dismantled. For her artwork, she portrayed Godiva, who is a mythological female character, famously roam around the ruin of Palm Bay in well and Jensen's novel. But he slowly she slowly materialized and come back to life. So this is the proposal rendering by El-Hadi and then the completed artwork now at on the wall at the station. When my image imagine that Godiva has come back to claim both the original Penn Station in its former glory, as well as to stake her presence in our modern time. This is a detail at Broadway Station in Astoria Queen's Outlook by Diane Carr is an imaginary saturated and color filled landscape. Carr is a painter. And she's just interested in the materiality of paint, also the bordering between representation and abstraction. The artwork depicts just like that. The artwork now installed at the station, that's totally transformed, depicting the wetland of the area before the human settlements. The color was actually taken from the nearby store signs, the park, public places, referencing the past and present of the neighborhood surrounding this elevated station. The last project I want to share today is the stunning artwork by Barbara Takanaga for the white plant stations in Westchester. Takanaga created two original paintings. And one small one for the glass on the platform, which later they are being digitally merged into the final composition for the fabrication into mosaic. Now the install artwork is the center piece in the station lobby. The dots and lines flowing from the deep bridge blue into the infinite space appropriately capture the city's energy and its history. On the site platform, his work in glass greets the commuter with the converging and disappearing with them just like the train movements. So I want to end the same with the same photos as Catherine has shared. It was such a precious moment of Catherine and Marcel in front of their artwork as we gathered in September to celebrate the completion of their projects with friends and family and public. Yeah, thank you all. Thank you so much, Eileen, for sharing this wonderful review designs by women for the MTA. Just before we dive into Zorian's presentation, who will be our last panelist to present, I just want to encourage everyone in the audience to submit questions using the Q&A function at the bottom of your zoom screen. And we look forward to dialogue with you following Zorian's presentation. So I'm pleased now to turn it over to Zorian Clayton, assistant curator of prints at the Victorian Albert Museum in London. Hello. Thank you very much for having me speak with you today. It's been amazing seeing all these fantastic public art in New York. And I can't wait to hopefully get there to see all of that and the Cooper Hewitt Calfa show in April. But I've been invited to sort of share a few of the women who were designing at the same time as Calfa, so contemporaries of him in the early commissioning of posters for the London Underground. And this is a fabulous one, which is a new acquisition for Cooper Hewitt by Annie Gertrude, Fletcher. And I love it. It's got this sort of subtly festive there with the sort of fur trims and the red hats. But when I first looked at it, I thought it was like a cuchette or something. But obviously the top half of the drawing is this sort of quiet time to travel. And then the bottom half is this busy, busy time. So this was recently given to the Cooper Hewitt, but they otherwise don't have an enormous amount of the designers who were women designers who were working for the Tube in the early days. But the V&A was lucky to be the recipients of some 1076 posters given by the Frank Pick, who commissioned a lot of these works and people working for the London Underground, mainly between 1911 and 1933. And a lot of those posters are by women. A shout out quickly to Terry Edelstein, whose Fantastic Art for All book contains a lot more detail on the subject. And a lot of statistics about how many women were commissioned to make posters for the Underground. And that the highest number in any of the pre-war years was just 21 out of 115 artists who were commissioned in 1931. Calphor, of course, is known as the poster king. And I suppose it's worth pointing out that a lot of the male artists were given these sort of pantheon style titles. But there is no mother of the poster or queen of the poster given out at this time, even though there were so many fantastic women who were designing at the time. The only one sort of compounded by the only moniker like that, the types that have managed to find, which was for the American poster designer Ethel Reed of the 1890s. And her moniker was the beautiful poster lady, which sort of sums up that disparity there. But here are just a couple of the favourites who I have done a bit of research on from the V&A collection. So these two by Vera Willoughby. She designed posters for the Underground between 1928 and 1935. And one of her most enduring motifs is this sunburst, which is used to lighten up the sky in this general joy poster. She sometimes worked under the name Vera Petrovna. And some sources state she was born in Hungary. But this was later deemed to be a fabrication to sort of spice up her life story. And she was actually from quite a dreary part of South London, where she was born in 1870. And it's much easier to find out a little bit more about her than many of the other commercial artists of the time, who it's often quite notoriously difficult to find out very much information, personal information about commercial artists from this era. But here are two more posters that she designed that it's more easier to find out about because she was married to a silent film star called Louis Willoughby from around 1900. And later she had an affair with the man who was known as the original Peter Pan. And he was adopted by J. M. Barry. He was much younger than her. So she's in the news a lot in the 20s and 30s for being scandalous and controversial and things. And they discuss her love life quite a bit. So that's why there's much more of a record for her. And she also had a daughter with Louis Willoughby called Althea Willoughby, who also designed posters for the London Underground. Sometimes their work is mixed up for each other because she worked in quite similar style to her mother. And somebody else that I wanted to talk about was Dorothy Burris, who made some lovely posters for the tube in the 1920s. And I hate zoos, but we know that Dorothy also hated them. She talked about feeling really sad about looking at the looking into the eyes of the caged creatures and things. But she did many, like many women were commissioned to do sort of family friendly attractions. So a lot of the zoo ones were done by women. And the book that you can see on the right, she did two of these in 1927. She did queer birds at the zoo and queer beasts at the zoo of all the most unusual animals to be seen. But she was described as a born poster artist in lots of 1920s of art press, commercial art magazine, things. And the influence of Japanese printmaking is certainly visible. And you can see her vertical signature there in both of them. And yes, she was she also sort of crops up in quite a few she did book illustrations for her partner, who was called Vera Hutchinson. So this is a picture of Dorothy on the left, one of Vera's books in the middle and Vera on the right there. And so they crop up in quite a few lesbian history books because they were friends with Radcliffe Hall, who say they've been quite a few memoirs, people's diaries and things of other sort of prominent society lesbians of the early 20th century. Dorothy was a member of the Society of Women Artists, which was founded as the Society of Female Artists in 1855. Then in 1869, they changed the name to the Society of Lady Artists, and it finally became the SWA in 1899. And they're still going under that name in London. They just had, I think last year, their 160th annual exhibition. But it both Vera and Dorothy's case, we have quite a number of examples of their work. But there are a few people who we just, they just seem to have one poster commission, and then no more they sort of disappear out of the record. And it's been quite difficult to find out about some of them and to find out why that was. But Frank Pick and the Underground, they were tied into the London Art Schools. And so a lot of students would get like their first break, or they'd get a commission as part of their graphic art degree. I love this tramways one, she's by Monica Rawlins. This is a photograph of her from 1922 and the posters 1926. She was quite elusive. Until I discovered there was a BBC Radio for 15 minute drama, which was written about her life in 2015, because her diaries have been left to the Welsh National Library. And Beth and Robert have found out all about her, but she had quit graphic design, basically, and moved to rural Wales to become a goose breeder. So that was why we couldn't find any more posters by her. And Dorothy Dix, who did this one of the host houses in Kent on the right, I could find out even less about her birth and death dates are not known. Dictionary's art dictionary that I found say she was a painter who flourished from 1895 to 1947. But for such a long career, it seems really unusual that very little about her would be known. And no other works come up. It's always this one poster. So she's not to be confused with an actress who is also called Dorothy Dix and an American gossip columnist of a similar era whose name was Dorothy Dix. But yeah, I keep trying, you know, the final person I just wanted to talk about was Dora Batty, who was one of the most prolific women designing for London Underground in the early period. I think she did just over 50 posters for them. And I love these, you know, very vogue-ish of the time modern women in this sort of super Trump Loy effect that she has in these. And, you know, these posters would have been extremely prominent in the public sphere. And yeah, she was just, you know, one of the this is one of a series, which was seasonal. So this is another one of the same of the same type. And she was born in 1891. She was the daughter of a reverend. And she also did a lot of book illustration, like all the other artists I've mentioned. But she was also called a celebrity of the poster in an article where she was exhibiting with Kalfa. But her name, I suppose, has sort of become less well known over time. But she also taught textile design from 1932 at the Central School in London. And she became head of textiles there throughout most of the 1950s, which is a realm that many women who were working in graphic design often found more work, even though if perhaps it wasn't always their chosen field, they were sort of pushed into textile design sometimes. And if you want to know more about that, there's an excellent blog about an artist called Lillian Dring, who made some fantastic posters at the same sort of time. But she was she found she couldn't find enough work as opposed to designer and she went into textile design, but it was not her chosen field. But I probably gone over, I probably overrun a little bit. But perhaps that's something that we can, that might come up in the questions when I'll stop my share and pass you back to Emily to start the Q&A. Great. Thanks so much to Zorian. And all of you for your wonderful presentations that took us through this great review of how women have brought their unique perspectives and creative talents to the design of the subway systems in New York and London. I was wondering if we could start out with a question to you, Catherine, for your contemporary perspective and to Zorian for more of a historical note on the particular importance of significance of the underground as an exhibition space and what particular opportunities it offered women that other more traditional venues did not. Well, one thing I noticed particularly is the level of enthusiasm and participation when I entered this new world of a woman designing for transit. I think galleries and art museums are intimidated. They can be a little rarefied. But everyone, everyone loved the idea of art in a public place like the subway in New York. It just became inclusive and people, everyone could relate to it. My own children were more excited about that than anything. Yes, I think it's quite an opportunity. There's some great quotes from from the 20s and 30s where people said that they missed their trains because they were admiring the posters and the tunnels were described as gallery spaces and things, but obviously poster design for the most part has really dropped off since the mid 20th century and the big ad agencies. It goes into much more stock photography and not artworks anymore. But it has been very much replaced in the public sphere with fantastic commissioned art like this instead of posters. I think that's what's ruling the the tunnels now visually. Certainly the appeal of reaching such a broad audience, both today and historically, you know, is a great advantage to this work being seen by all its democratic spirit, its ability to introduce the public to new styles, while also giving them necessary information. And it's great to hear that it creates a dialogue with the public. And so Ye-Ling, I was wondering if you could talk to us a bit about feedback that you received from commuters, public opinion, how that dialogue goes with with MTA Arts and Design. Yeah, sure. Happy to. And before I jump over to that question, I want to also add to the previous question for sure. Based on my role as the kind of commissioning entity, it really is given the artist an opportunity to do their own each of their own unique creative practices to design artwork for a specific site for a specific group of audience. That really provided a unique narrative about the place that's why we always call it has to be original, it has to be specific. And why is it different from more conventional exhibit space is that it has that sense of permanence. So their artwork would be, we say permanently, install and live in that subway station. So that to me is a difference, kind of a pretty important point. I think a lot of artists do embrace that quality. I also want to say that something McNeil had mentioned so candidly is that he firmly believed that modern art should move beyond the walls of museum and galleries to infiltrate all elements of daily life. And that's the essence of public art. And so yeah, just what artists are given the opportunities to be able to fulfill the role of art for social and cultural engagement. So so that's my my thoughts. So moving on to the to the feedback. I want to give a few examples from different perspective as well. From the from the public, I've always, I had so many memorable experiences of having the public come over or stop midway. They were blown away by the artwork that was being installed at the station at the time. And just to say, Oh, my God, it's so wonderful. I remember for Jinxin's project at Broadway station on Northern Railroad, that was actually my very first project as a junior manager and curator. I saw people just walk up and and reach out their hand touch those ceramic shards. And that that's very touching for me. For the perspective of the community, I want to say that our experience of working through the commissioning process, the selection process for mother health bus depot, how how supportive of the the local community task force is to because they really wanted to have an artwork that represent their themselves. So we work with them hand in hand and selected Jinxin Smith. And at the end, we become dear friends with the community. So that's why community input. It's so important to us to our practice and our selection process. Lastly, for the artist, Catherine has say a lot of how positive this experience experience is to her. I also remember when we were at the station with together with Diana for her installation at Penn Station, she nailed down and then sort of like very carefully wanted to find where she secretly hide her name and her mother's name and her son's name in a very small, small mosaic piece when she found that she was in tears and then she faced time with her mother and to show her the exact spot where the family the names of the family was being kind of inside. So yeah, it's it's just the and I'm sure my colleague has a lot more to say. So but it's I think for all the perspective, it's been a very rewarding experience. And I hope it is the same for our audience as well. Those are wonderful stories about the deeply personal connection that artists feel to the work but also the ways in which communities are receptive and reactive and responsive to art and design around them in their home stations, which after all is a very personal experience for us all. We all feel connected deeply rooted to our neighborhoods and our daily commuting experience starts and ends in the same place for most of us every single day. So that becomes a deeply personal process in and of itself. There are a few questions here about materials and medium and I wonder, Zorian, if you could speak a bit to the importance of the poster as a medium that was present in the underground system. And Catherine, if you might be able to tell us a bit about translating your work to a mosaic structure and maybe a link you could weigh in on why mosaics have so often been a medium of choice on the transit experience. And we'll posters on paper can last hundreds of years in the museum but out on the walls of the city, they are quite a fragile thing. But there's loads of lovely examples of where posters have been transformed into tiles or in ceramics in some way, and that they have a permanent so in Germany, there's quite a few stations where they have the poster grates from the 1900s, 1910s, the Sach Placate artists, their posters are still there in, you know, 120 years later in tile form. And there's a great one in London in Laytonstone in the tunnels going into that station is where Alfred Hitchcock was born. Lots of Alfred Hitchcock posters have been turned into tiles. So it's amazing. I love that. Interchanging of materials and then making, you know, posters be in situ in a more permanent way. I was a bit skeptical that a glass mosaic could be my that my paintings could be translated into glass mosaic. And I was there, present as they were making them. And I must say, I thought they did an amazing job. They're they're very talented at getting the effects that they get. And my paintings turned all sparkly. In some ways, they were given a dimension that I really appreciated. And when my artist friends found out that I had artwork in the subway, one question we always ask each other is, Oh, how wonderful, how long will it be up? And how satisfying it was to look them in the eye and say, forever? Well, let's hope so. That was a particular thrill. I'm sure. I can only imagine. Yellen, do you have anything to add to the conversation in terms of the history of art in mosaic for the subway system? And it's kind of continuing popularity and use today? Yeah, I have a lot to say, but short. Long story short. Yes, we transit environment is a very challenging environment. It's also for New York, it's over a century old. We're dealing with a lot of challenges to keep up with the the time technology while being able to provide much more accessible services. Our art design was born in 1985, based on the cornerstone of the subway funders, firm believe that the transit system should be a great public work, not just for the for being accessible, being efficient, but also at the same time, it needs to be to have that emphasis on the architectural investments in its graft and good design. So we carry we carry that mission through to what we do today. For the subway stations, often time, the available canvas space for us are those walls, and to be able to introduce our work that's available, and then to for our audience, but at the same time, they have to be durable and easy to maintain and then that say, that's why a key elements of how we have a range of very durable materials for the artwork that we've commissioned so far. That being mosaic, being glass for mostly the elevated station on the platform level for metal for the the commuter rail station, or whenever the space that the opportunities may available for for us. And in some cases, we may have mixed media or even lighting our work when it's possible. I enjoyed how you called a wall of a subway station at canvas. And that was a really nice metaphor to use. And I think thinking about the placement of where the art and design falls in the visitor pathway in the station is an interesting exhibition challenge, but also, of course, important in order to catch the viewer, the passerby's attention at the correct moment in their commuting pathway. And there are traditional places where we expect to see these installations now. Catherine, I wondered if you could talk about where your work is located physically within the station? We had a great comment from an attendee who said that positioning a superhero, a flying superhero nearby to a stairwell was inspiring for the swift run down the stairs or up the stairs. Did you consider any of your works in particular in terms of their location within the station? And how did that play out for you? Yes, in particular, those stairwells because we were told right from the beginning that this would be something that the travelers would look up and see as they were going down stairs. And I had already done the two paintings of flying superheroes. And so I thought to myself, oh, that would be great for those two places. And so that that was that problem solved. I had more questions about the other places. The fact is that both the L line that goes from Manhattan to Brooklyn has become much more crowded just in the past decade, because of the amount of people that consider Brooklyn their home, but feel they're part of Manhattan. So there's a lot of traffic between the two. And so both the first Avenue station and the Bedford Avenue station were needed to be expanded and also comply with disability laws. So they both had elevators and the mezzanine section became almost three or four times as big. It's still packed with people enjoying it. And maybe I should mention that New York City has a percent for art law so that when a subway is renovated, part of the plan is to set aside money for artwork, which is so great. And that's how a lot of these projects are come into being. Excellent. And that leads right into a question that we had from another attendee about how the particular stations are chosen for these new commissions. Yelling, is there anything that you would like to add on that point? Yeah, great questions. Thank you. Our permanent person for our program is tied to the overall MTA capital program. And so under which, when there is an opportunity for our allocation, and there is a kind of established formula, so then we could use it to make plans and start our selection process to commission others to create our work for the given station. So that's one thing. And I just want to share that. I'm sure there will be other good questions. For sure. No, thanks so much for sharing that update about how the process works. Zorian, how about in London and the both the placement of the posters within the stations and the choice of the particular station that was being renovated or remodeled to include new new art and design commissions? Back then or now, because I'm not too sure about now, I don't think we have quite as ambitious a public art program in London underground. There is a great series, which is called Art on the Underground, which is current, but that is still poster form. It's not big permanent installations. But back at the time, yeah, there were lots of different sizes of posters that were all designed for different parts. And so some are about the size just a bit bigger than an average laptop screen. You can see some of Emily's ones. And they're great for collecting as well, because they're not so big. But yeah, the ones the main ones in the collection are sort of just over an A1 size. But yeah, there were many different kinds that were designed in formats that they had. So yeah, very prolific. And about 120 artists I would say a year would be commissioned. And in the time I was talking about to design different ones. So it's quite diverse and very diverse styles. And some are quite traditional, as you saw, you know, the sort of landscape ones that just look like lovely landscape paintings, but then some of them were really progressive and bold and new art styles and things. So it was a very interesting mix of of styles and fashions and ideas and things that people might encounter when they went down there. And yeah, just such strong illustration that I'm sad that we live in a time when it's just quite bad stock photography things. And some posters that you see, you just think really, like somebody was paid to come up with that, like, you know, I'm flabbergasted. Every other poster I see, I just can't believe people paid to produce it. They're rubbish today, for the most part. You got to go to poster biennials and graphic design circles to find the good stuff because it is still out there. But unfortunately, it's not so visible on the street. Well, thanks to the V&A's incredible online collection, at least we can mine history for creative inspiration and see those links between what felt very new in the early 20th century that can still look so contemporary to our eyes today. That's one of the things that I find remarkable in looking back at both Kaufer and Doren's work, how experimental they were stylistically and how fresh and relevant their work still feels. There are some questions about the logistics in terms of the commissioning process. And Zorian mentioned that there were hundreds of opportunities given out in the early 20th century for artists to become engaged with design for the underground. Ye Lin, what is the commissioning process like in terms of the logistics, the call and the numbers of proposals that you received? Yeah, that's exactly what I expect the question will come up. And I see quite a few. So yeah, happy. We have a very established panel process, which because we are a public agency, is also procurement work. So we begin by posting open call through our own website, social media, we do outreach to local arts and cultural organization institutions. We also post post our open call through Nightfall. Do our best to reach out to a broader audience as possible to encourage them to apply to the opportunity. We then our very talented team of curators and managers, we would then kind of screen those submissions and then come up with the pool of artists that to show to the panel. Our panel of juries is composed of five members, one being art and design, one being the architect, it could be the chief architect or project architect, and three being what we call arts professional. We invite arts professionals from the museums or arts councils, works that are based in the neighborhood where the station would receive the art to serve as a panelist. At the first panel, the panelists will review the pool of artists. And at the conclusion of the first panel meeting, we would select a handful of artists, finalists to participate in this process. Subsequently, we held the artist orientation to just go over all the logistics of the project, including a visit to the station decides when possible. The artists will be given somewhere around six to eight weeks to work on their proposals. And then the second, also the final panel meeting we convene the voting panelists come back. I would also mention one key participant is the community. Their input is very important to us, even though they are just on the adversary capacity. But we do we do hear, we want to hear from them. Because their voice is very important to us and to the panel. So at the end of the the second panel meeting, the panel would vote and select the artists to receive the commission. So that's that's a process. So it's a lot to extend beyond that. In a 2019 hyper logic article, it said it reported that we over this year, this many years, we are in our 36 years, I believe, also design has a better track record with commissioning 48% of women artists in our in our collection. More than the top museums in the United States, which I think at that point is was only 13%. How did we plan for that? So I want to hear quote by Sandra because Sandra Blackworth, who is the director of us and design, she when she was giving the interviews, she actually say it just happened. It's the by product of the process, which I totally agree. We didn't plan for that. But because of the process itself that allows the artist to apply the artist to spread the word, we ask the panelists to recommend artists who if they are they happen to be women, they may want to recommend their fellow women artists. So there are just a lot of variabilities that happen. But to add to that great point of Sandra's, I want to say that we it's not we still have way to go to bring that equity to a point where we can be probably say that we are we are somewhat satisfied. Today we are facing we are working with our colleague to bring art to to a number of the ADA station that we that's receiving the ADA upgrades, like MTA is working on adding elevators and stairs to stations, like the one that Katrin has our work installed this fall. And so our I take it as also my personal mission to bring art to our station that can be at the same time, much more accessible and much more inclusive. Could I add something to what yelling because I noticed that when we met as a group of finalists, maybe there were about nine of us. It was a wonderful range of people. Some at the beginning of their careers, I noticed two of them were my former students. Some who specialty was drawing, which translates well into a into a project, some whose specialty what was social political art, especially immigration, I think they were, I think I think that's a hot topic, as they say. And from all parts of the art world, I was impressed with the diversity and range of people applying. I don't know how that happened, maybe just happened. Well, it's certainly inspiring to hear how both the makers for art and design and our transit systems and the audience for art and design is expanding and diversifying and increasing in scale through these wonderful commissions. And sorry, and I was wondering, you know, Catherine alluded to the great diversity in the pool who was applying for the commission at the time she was the range of approaches to art, but also stages that those artists were in their career. And you mentioned in your presentation that oftentimes this commission could be a pivotal turning point in the career for a woman artist and designer. And I was wondering if you could just speak a bit more to how it provided that transformation for them. Yes. I think it's a really great opportunity. Again, I can't speak about art schools now, but the central school in London at the time, they were given like, I mean, it's a huge commission to do right at the beginning of their career in, you know, early 20s to then be having such a prominent work of art straight out there in the city, I think, because a really great opportunity and something that they should build back into art schools if they're not doing that kind of thing. But yeah, a lot of them then did get jumped into other commissions. So there was a woman called Ruth Sands, who we have some work by, she had one post for the underground, and then she picked up a lot of commissions for some of the really big, fancy department stores like Dairy and Tom's and things in London. So it often was just a very prominent way to get people's work out and a great way to support young artists, I think. So they're not doing that now, they really should be. I got this message on my social media, and it said, please bring some artwork to my subway station, it really needs it. Yelling, I'll tell you later which one it is. Yeah, I was going to ask you, sure, please. Well, Catherine alluded to this a bit in her presentation, but I was wondering if we might all talk about our home stations, and as either makers or commissioners or being design conscious consumers of art and design, maybe how your involvement with the field has made it so that you see the station differently, or a station that you pass by frequently. I don't know, what do you notice differently about the transit system having worked and intersected with the sector? I'm noticing a lot of change, but I feel like sort of going over that. The neighborhood that I work in and live in, it's grown so much. Of course, we went through a pandemic. We all applied for this commission before COVID. And then we had to wait. And I wasn't even very patiently waiting for it to actually happen. The glass murals had to be shipped from Germany on a boat, and then transported somehow underground to the subway zones. And all that time, I was just really nervous that the whole thing would fall apart and never happen. But it did. And then we had this really joyous celebration in September on a beautiful September day, wasn't it? Yelling, it was such good weather and such good spirits in the whole neighborhood. I had many friends who who were just bursting with curiosity who came to see what was happening. And I think it was a feeling that that the whole community got a big jump, a big boost by by having the MTA single us out for a better subway station. Cannot agree more, Catherine. And I think for the past year and a half, close to two, many of our practices have shifted that we just have to adapt with so much unknowns, which to say that there was such a joyful moment for all of us to get together to celebrate our work that were finally installed at the station. I want to give a big shout out to the project manager, Bridget. She was the firm believer, and she kept on holding the Ford championing for caterings and my sales projects, coordinating with their galleries, the PR reps on behalf of Arts and Design. And that is how we were able to all get together to celebrate. So I mean, it definitely is a team effort. And she had a baby right in the middle of it. Yes. Yes. Yes. I cycle so I don't usually go in the underground if I can help it. But I did want to I did hear of a brilliant mural that has just been opened in Brixton subway underground in London, which is called five more minutes. And it's by Joy Labinjo. And it's a celebration of Afro Caribbean hair salons, which are numerous around Brixton. So that's an interesting one you can look up for murals that are happening in London, because there are some not quite as many, I think is MTA, but check it out. I'll put her name in the chat. Thanks, Zorian. I think we've all shared insights about the art and design of subway stations today. And I hope that everyone in the audience will have their eyes open ever more wide to the art and design around them as commuters, as everyday passengers, as visitors to other cities on other cities, public transport systems. It's been wonderful to hear everyone's perspectives that they bring to this field as makers, as historians, as commissioners, as curators. And I've really enjoyed hearing this historical arc of how the art and design of the transit system has expanded the diversity of makers and the audience for these cultural moments in our cities. So thanks so much to everyone for joining us today. We really appreciate all the engagement from the audience. And many thanks again to our wonderful slate of speakers for spending time with us and sharing your creative perspectives today. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all.