About the Project
| Quick Facts: |
| 23,000+ people have participated in Garden in Transit. 90% of participants are from NYC public schools, hospitals and youth programs. 200+ NYC area schools and hospitals are involved. Youth in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Georgia, and Ohio have also participated. 750,000 square feet of floral panels have been painted for the taxis, including 80,000 flowers Using our 1" brushes as a base, the GIT participants have painted the equivalent of a 1" straight line from NYC to Vail, Colorado, a distance of more than 1,700 miles. |
Garden in Transit may be the most ambitious community collaboration and public art project in New York City history.
From September 2007 and until year's end, New York City is being visually transformed, as the NYC taxi - the ubiquitous yellow icon -becomes a mobile artistic canvas, or Garden in Transit.
As part of this art, education and creative therapy project, 23,000 children in schools and hospitals - in addition to many adult volunteers - have painted 80,000 flowers on 750,000 square feet of adhesive panels for a four month public art exhibition featured on taxis citywide.
90% of children participated through schools and hospitals across Greater New York City. Children in New Jersey, California, Ohio, Georgia, and Pennsylvania also participated in the project.
Schools
Through Garden in Transit, thousands of school children of all ages participated in civic educational sessions- led by Portraits of Hope- in which they identified, discussed and learned about contemporary social issues affecting their communities and the world. Children integrated their written, oral and visual presentation skills and expressed their views on the individual and societal issues most important to them. As a group, the students evaluated the importance of 14 social themes inclusive of: the environment, education, senior care, national security, ethnic relations, healthcare, women's equality, medical research, foreign aid,poverty, and animal 
rights. Students were asked what they would most like to improve in the world, reasons why their topic mattered, and how they could contribute toits betterment. After they wrote about their issue, the students designed corresponding visual statements on small-scale taxis representing those issues and gave oral presentations to the group. All children were encouraged to keep their taxis as a reminder of their thoughts and goals. The larger art collaboration - painting a portion of the public canvas- was a group effort to demonstrate tangibly the power of community collaboration and civic engagement.
Hospitals
For children in hospitals, the project served as creative therapy. Children of all ages and medical and physical conditions had the opportunity to engage in Garden in Transit artistic activities, including the painting of the taxi panels. The children - many dealing with cancer, burn trauma, orthopedic ailments and other serious health concerns – participated in the artistic creations with their family members, visitors, medical staff, and hospital and project volunteers. Specialized Portraits of Hope brushes and painting methods were incorporated in these sessions to ensure that any child could participate. Telescope paint brushes were used for children and adults with IVs or in wheelchairs, shoe brushes for children with injured upper limbs or those who could not manipulate a brush in their hands, and flavored mouth brushes for those who painted with their mouths. Bedside visits at the hospitals were made by the Portraits of Hope team to ensure that any child who wished to participate was able to do so.
Ed Massey and Bernie Massey founded Portraits of Hope in 1995, continuing their utilization of art and poignant visual imagery for large-scale projects of social consequence. Garden in Transit was seven years in the making and dates back to 2000 when Ed and Bernie first proposed the idea to the City of New York.
How the Idea Started
Authors@Google: Ed Massey-Sept.2007 (36min)