Title: Bus Parts: Passage
Artist: Susannah Bielak
Material: bus doors, steel plate, paint, vinyl graphics
Four bus doors and two walls with images and text from the artist’s experience of riding the bus.
Bus Parts was originally commissioned with a Jerome Foundation Book Arts award in 2001. The project was inspired by the artist’s time on Twin Cities buses, and made possible, in part, by Metro Transit, which generously provided the bus doors. The drawings and writing for the project were generated on the bus, and in dialogue with fellow bus riders and drivers. A fellow artist at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Richard Stephens, was a bus driver, and through his kind introductions, the artist interviewed many bus drivers about their experiences driving.
These doors were installed in St. Paul City Hall for many years. Upon renovation of the space, the doors became homeless and eventually landed back at Metro Transit, their original home. They are now on display in a building used by bus drivers for breaks, lockers, check-in/check-out, etc.
“For many years, the bus was my carrier. When I created Bus Parts, I was riding the bus an average of two hours a day between jobs at a youth shelter and a museum. The project Bus Parts reflects on the communal and sensory nature of metro transit. In Passage, sketches and text edited from two years of bus observation are amplified onto bus doors and a backing wall. Each door focuses on relations formed on the bus.” - Susannah Bielak
Susannah Bielak
“I am a Chicago-based artist and writer, curator and cultural producer, and educator with expertise in cross-disciplinary collaboration, public engagement, and research.
As an artist and writer, I respond to issues including migration, displacement, and the relationship between domestic life and disaster. In the process, I mine personal and political histories, texts, and archives to find the allegorical possibilities and poetics of people, places, and materials.
With roots in Jewish, Mexican, and Eastern European diasporas, my work continually engages hybridity and the multiple—hybrid identities and forms; multiple histories and perspectives. My projects have ranged from a happening staged on a seismic shake table to engravings on kitchen table tops, and from town hall meetings to drawings made with my breath. My collaborators have included rodeo cowboys, bus drivers, a barbershop quartet, military veterans, choreographers and engineers.”
Artist’s Website: susybielak.com
The Metro Transit Public Art Collection consists of approximately 70 works by 27 different artists. Here are some facts about the collection.
Artist Janet Zweig has work at the most light-rail stations (seven). Her Small Kindnesses, Weather Permitting interactive audio and video boxes, can be found at:
Deborah Mersky has created public art at the second most light-rail stations. Her laser-cut fences and images can be found at:
There are only two artists with work on both the Blue Line and Green Line: Janet Lofquist and JoAnn Verburg.
You can find Lofquist's public art on the Blue Line at:
VA Medical Center Station (Blue Line)
10th Street Station (Green Line)
Robert Street Station (Green Line)
Prospect Park Station (Green Line)
You can find JoAnn Verburg's glass art on the Blue Line at:
28th Avenue Station (Blue Line)
Bloomington Central Station (Blue Line)
46th Street Station (Blue Line)
Lake Street/Midtown Station (Blue Line)
