February 2007
Jena, Germany
Thinking about the significance commuting has in our daily lives, I calculated that if a given person in a city like Jena spends an hour per day on public transportation, after the course of one year, this would amount to 15 days of travel time.
During 15 days, the lights on the inside of a streetcar on Line 1 (Zwäten – Winzerla) were made pink. This route was selected for this intervention because it best illustrated the relationship between commute and work, traveling from a residential neighborhood and through the city center, to the industrial area of Jena. On the other hand, pink lighting offered stark contrast to the bland, office-like atmosphere of white fluorescent lights, brown seat covers, and tan fixtures on standard streetcars in hope that the experience of commuters would be transformed.
I had never before thought that a color alone could embody the feeling of vacation until I stood on Jena’s Paradise Bridge. Although I have never been to Miami, the bridge made me think of pink flamingos and an extravagant weekend in Miami. And it was just because the bridge was pink, all of it.
