The Moving Bus
In 2012 the AS220 Youth Photography program had the unprecedented opportunity to take our portraits from the Kennedy Plaza Portrait Project and use them as design elements in redesigning the exterior and interior of a Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority Bus (RIPTA). In collaboration with the Providence Dept of Arts Culture and Tourism, RIPTA and Nail Communications my students Krysbel Sepulveda, Treasure Price, Danny Ong, Fernando Flaquer, Justin Espinal, Justin Hernandez, Carlos De La Rosa and James Sawyer were able to design and execute a professional public art project as part of our summer work program. The project came to be titled “The Moving Bus”. Generous Nail Designers Myles Dumas and Colin Gillespie created a structured, collaborative learning environment that allowed students to develop and present their own ideas. This real world project had real world challenges in the forms of unaccepted project ideas and last minute budget issues. In the end a project emerged that from which dozens of students who had input at some point felt tremendous pride. To date it still runs daily routes through Providence, free of graffiti, defying expectations.