MTA Subway Station
site-specific intervention, documentation
archival pigment prints
variable
2009-ongoing
Coinciding with the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s discovery of
the island Mannahatta, “Get Lost! (NYC)” restores the MTA’s
subway maps, signs and place names, to what they may have
geographically looked and sounded like when Hudson first sailed by
it’s shores in 1609. These restorations based on 18th century
cartography and toponymy, particularly the 1782 British
Headquarters Map erases 400 years of accumulated history, street
names, neighborhoods, and subway lines, returning Manahatta to it’s
original green spaces, streams, ponds, and shores the Lenni Lenape
Indians once inhabited.
A site-specific project referencing New York cities historical
geography and toponomy, the “Get Lost!” project appropriates the
MTA’s visual vocabulary, through restored maps, manipulated
signage and decals returning borough names to their original Lenape
and Dutch place names. Returned and inserted back into the subway
system in guerrilla fashion, these restorations and alterations are
placed over their contemporary counterparts, providing viewers a
brief window into another time, inviting them to get lost and
rediscover the island that became the greatest city in the world.