People's Instinctive Travels: Homage to the Tribe

2019 Bay Pkwy (N) New York City Transit

Eamon Ore-Giron worked with fabricator Mosaicos Venezianos de México to translate six original oil paintings into 24 glass mosaic panels that adorn the northbound and southbound platforms at the Bay Pkwy station in Brooklyn. Ore-Giron visualizes the world as abstract forms and shapes, and envisions the interaction and interplay of these shapes as a reflection of societal dynamics. This exchange between forms and his use of geometries symbolizes the ways in which people of different communities — such as those surrounding the Bay Pkwy station — negotiate their relationships with each other and new places, a process of reinvention and creation.

The 12 mosaic panels on each platform reference the corresponding journey. As commuters travel southbound towards Coney Island, Ore-Giron’s designs reference the natural world, with fluid arcs and warm colors evoking the feelings one might have when going to the beach. The northbound platform mosaics mimic the movement of gears and the mechanics of the human-made world, conjuring feelings of New York’s ecstatic urban environment.

"People’s Instinctive Travels: Homage to the Tribe" originates from Ore-Giron’s "certain nostalgia for global modernism," wherein "public works meant to create a kind of civic mindedness and unity." His dynamic visual language references this unity, combined with the timelessness of indigenous and craft traditions. It is Ore-Giron’s hope that these mosaics will offer subway riders a space to see the world anew through the shapes, forms, colors, and movements of these artworks.