Les Galeries du Métro Table Of Contents Concept - 2 Background and Audience - 6 Previous Approaches - 16 Implementation - 27 Assessment Plan - 38 Conclusion - 43 References & image Credits - 46 Alain Viel Rob Lue Isaravut Iamviriyakul Sciences Po Professors Adam Tanaka Shuchen Liang A Collaborative Effort By Harvard College Teaching Fellows Jessica Liu Léo Houairi Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires Karaghen Hudson Harvard College Concept 2 Conceptual Vision The average Parisian spends about 84 hours a year waiting at a métro sta- tion or a tram stop (Pujol 2015). Most of the stations they are spending this time in are drab, dingy, and contain little art outside of advertisements. Our project seeks to reinvogorate the métro station experience by placing art in the walls and ceilings of the train platforms. We cooperate with curators from the museums of Paris to choose an artist from the Paris métropolitan area, who will select a piece of art from the collection and create some- thing in response. Both pieces will be displayed in the station (either a repro- duction or a picture for the piece of art from the museum), which creates a dialog between the old and the new. Stations will be picked both from the Grand Paris métro expansion and existing stations in the métro system. 3 Conceptual Vision Biological Metaphor The decorator crab selects small animals, such as sea anemones and sponges, and seaweeds to decorate its shell (Monterey Bay Aquari- um 2017). The resulting shell is a sort of symbiotic beauty: the attached organisms help ward off predators, while in return receiving a place to live and a food source (AquaViews Magazine 2017). Artist’s rendition of a normal crab compared to a decorated crab. By: Karaghen Hudson 4 COnceptual Vision We imagine a similar symbiot- transition space for public as the métro users: they are ic relationship between cura- transportation. The mind of essentially “hitch hikers” of the tors of the museum, the art- the decorator crab is like the crab/métro and are exposed ists, and métro users. The shell museum curators: they deter- to feeding opportunities based of a crab is like the métro sta- mine what is worthy enough on the crab’s movements or tion: it fulfills a basic function to be their shell’s decoration. are now capable of moving of providing protection to the If considering the decorations from point A to point B while crab just as the plain, white- as living, we can also think of enjoying the beautiful dec- tile métro stations serve as the sponges or sea anemones orations on the shell/métro. Crab Shell Hitchhiker Organisms Métro Station Artwork Symbiosis Métro Users Background and Context 6 Background Whether you are a tourist or a fact, the Parisian métro is ranked citizen of the Paris métropolitan among the best in the world in 245 Métro stations area, a near ubiquitous part of terms of accessibility within the across 14 lines the Paris experience is the us- city, as the stations tend to be age of its extensive métro and very close together; all Parisians rail networks. The Paris Métro- within the city proper are with- politain and RER is one of the in walking distance, ten minutes 400 meters At most for closest station within Paris busiest in the world, serving or less, to a métro station (Gee over 1.5 billion passengers every 2016). However, even though year, and plans to expand the its success as a method of mass métro further will only increase transport is apparent, there is 68 new stations this statistic in the next fifteen still much that could be done to Across NEw lines 15, 16, 17, and 18 years (Pécresse et al. 2015). In improve the rider experience. 7 Background A Entering Station Waiting for Train As it is, the subway station is experience can already be Before seen a fairly drab and uncom- an uncomfortable one, espe- fortable transitory space - an cially during rush hour where Exiting Station unpleasant gap between point people are packed tightly into A and point B with little ex- narrow cars. Our goal is to pectation of beauty. With a few alleviate that experience as B notable exceptions, stations much as possible, and in a city After tend to be built with minimal with a rich artistic and cultur- attention to aesthetics. We be- al history, we believe that art lieve that this does not have to is the way to accomplish this. be the case: the daily transport 8 Contexts of paris Paris is considered a mature city with a complex urban structure. The city has an advanced pub- lic transportation system and strong institutional and financial means (Hubert & Jehanno 2006). Paris is very economically prosperous within the city and certain outlying suburbs, though huge in- equalities, financial and otherwise, still exist even between neighboring arrondissements or suburbs (Bolongaro 2015). However, there have been efforts to more evenly distribute this properity pro- duced by the city, the most recent and prominent of which is the creation of the Grand Paris region. The Grand Paris mission statement is to create “an urban, social, and economic development project which brings together the Greater Paris Region’s strategic areas with Paris at the heart of the Greater Paris area.” 9 Contexts of paris An important focus of the Grand Paris is the expansion of the public transportation network in order to support local development and link the main economic centers of the region. The key points of focus for us are the network’s future stations (3). The construction process is also the perfect time for artists to install their work, which would otherwise disturb already functioning stations. 10 Audience The first are stations nearby, which will ser- Thus, our main audience will vice the under-privi- be the residents of Grand leged of Paris proper. Paris, specifically those who have not previously had the privilege to engage with mu- We focus on targeting seums. The brand new and two kinds of stations. under renovation métro The second are the fu- stations in the Grand Paris ture stations in the ban- public transportation expan- lieues, which will service sion serve as blank canvases those who live too far to for Les Galeries du Métro. engage on a regular basis. 11 Audience Here we wanted to clearly quantify the scale of the im- pact of the art. To do that, we selected different muse- ums in Paris and searched for the annual users of both nearby métro stations and museums*. Some stations are not represented due to lack of data.The blue bars, representing the number of *The station “Châtelet” near the Pompidou **Neither the Louvre nor the Orsay are included Center is not displayed here. Its 40 million pas- as their associated stations are already decorated. people going to the muse- sengers disrupted the readbility of the graph. um are very small compared to the number of nearby data merely counts the number of people exiting. Thus, the total amount of potential métro users. In addition, the entering the station, and none who are exposure could be larger than displayed**. 12 Inspirations A beautiful métro system and a highly efficient métro are not A typical train plat- form in Moscow mutually exclusive concepts; perhaps the most prominent example of this is the Mos- cow metro. It is both busier and longer than that of Paris, yet it was built with such at- tention to beauty that it has become a tourist attraction in and of itself (Alleyne 2016). A mural commem- orating the end of World War 2 13 Inspirations Now admittedly, the Moscow arts for those who may not métro was built under an au- usually have access. Another thoritarian regime with no amazing example of a beautiful budgetary constraints. Howev- metro is Stockholm’s efforts to er, our goal is not to achieve the decorate its metro lines: more same grandiosity and excess of than 90 out of the 100 sta- Moscow. Rather, it is to elevate tions in its system contain art the current experience into from over 150 artists since the something more representa- 1950s (Dye 2016). We believe tive of Paris’s reputation as the that the successes there may “Museum City,” generally intro- translate just as well in Paris. ducing greater exposure to the Art in the T-Centralen (top) and Tekniska Hög- skolan (bottom) station of the Stockholm metro. 14 Inspirations SDG 4: Education SDG 11: Inequalities By expanding access to the art world, Access to Paris’ museums is a privi- Another area of inspiration we enhance cultural and artistic educa- lege which many do not have, as the is the UN Sustainable De- tion, subjects which tend to be forgotten financial costs can be prohibitive for velopment Goals. We have in higher education. In the European non-students. In addition, there may several key impacts we hope Union, more than a third of all gradu- be a lack of awareness or a lack of time ates come from the social sciences and in general to visit museums. A study by to make, which are based on business; the next quarter come from the French cultural ministry showed that how culture may enhance health services or engineering; finally, a only about 51% of French people had the UN Sustainable Devel- little more than 10% come from the arts visited a cultural establishment in the opment Goals. Though they and humanities. Even those graduating past year (Perin 2017). This figures drops are normally focused on the in the humanities are not guaranteed to to 20% when restricted to only workers environmental issues, the have a robust artistic education (Eurostat (6).