"Small Kindnesses: Weather Permitting"

When this art piece was created, a competition was held for Minnesota filmmakers, videographers, singers, poets, storytellers, comics, etc., to provide content for the boxes. The theme of the short films and audio clips was to be “weather” or “courtesy,” the two clichés about Minnesota. One hundred Minnesotans were commissioned to create 190 short videos and audio clips (none longer than three minutes) providing station visitors with always varying content while waiting for the train.

Janet Zweig is a sculptor working primarily in the public realm. Her public works include installations and public spaces, often including computer-driven works using printers and language-generating programs. She has also produced several editioned artist’s books. 

Zweig receive her Bachelors of Art from Cornell University and her Masters of Fine Arts from The Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. Zweig has received several fellowships and awards including the Rome Prize Fellowship in 1992, and residencies at PS1 Museum and the MacDowell Colony. She has received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Computer Arts in 1999, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Sculpture in 1994. ^]She is currently a senior critic at the Rhode Island School of Design and a lecturer at Brown University's Graduate Program in Public Humanities. Her works are in various public and private collections.

Pedestrian Drama from Janet Zweig on Vimeo.

Pedestrian Drama, 2011, Milwaukee, WI

These boxes were based on an old candlestick phone like this one. There were no buttons or dials. When you wanted to make a call you would pick up the ear piece and start talking to an operator.