Commissioned by the MTA Arts & Design, “Personal Choice #5” is an invitation for riders to reflect on lived communal experience, connection, and proximity in New York City. The piece is permanently installed at the Lorimer-Metropolitan L/G, down the steps and inside the station at the Lorimer Street entrance. The work is the latest iteration of my series titled “Personal Choice,” which pairs found images from the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection with text I’ve written. 

“Personal Choice #5” depicts three groups of figures in areas of Williamsburg near the subway station. Beginning on the Brooklyn-bound side with a depiction of two Orthodox Jewish community members from a photo taken in the 1960s, the triptych progresses on the wall in the center mezzanine featuring a 1997 image of a diverse group of teenagers, and finishes on the Manhattan-bound side with a photographic depiction from 2005 of two men engaged in conversation. Together, these images encapsulate an inherent intimacy and anonymity of public life, serving as an outward reminder of a collective sense of hope and new beginnings.

Fabricated by Miotto Mosaic Art Studios, the three compositions portray various gestures of touch overlaid with text I wrote, lending a sense of continuity across each wall. The text, rendered in cut metal lettering, reads: “Whenever I’m pulled under by the weight of all I miss, I take some consolation that I have known, and may yet know, another life.” Spreading as a single sentence over the three mosaic panels encourages the work to be read like an open book, with one panel serving as the front cover, another as the central spine, and the third as the back.

“Personal Choice #5” bridges the concept of place and human interaction with a message of remembrance that contemplates the evolution and change of neighborhoods, and the resiliency of New York and its inhabitants.

The use of tender, gestural images points to the inherent intimacy of public life in a city where we live alongside more than 8 million other people, many of whom are different from us. The depiction of non-white (or otherwise minority) people is a reminder of who we must remember to consider and call our neighbors.