The bus stop for me symbolizes a temporary pause, a conclusion. It may offer warmth, rest, a shelter from inclement weather, or the scorching sun. For most, it marks the movement from point A to point B, seemingly unremarkable. Yet this architectural object functions as an active visual accent within the city landscape, intertwined with the surrounding built environment and complex spatial-visual relationships. It's a performative installation (or social sculpture) that invites engagement with the situations of real individuals, each with extraordinary stories of living in the city.
The very first reaction occurred during the installation at the Yugoslav stop. A middle-aged man, almost spilling out of his second-floor window, shouted about the destruction of city property and threatened to call the police. I believe that even if I had an official permit, nothing would have changed.
The works lingered on the stops for a while, sometimes for no more than an hour, and at other times stretching into a month, before vanishing back into the city.
The second encounter happened at the Belarusian stop. An elderly woman asked what I was doing. I told her about the project. She admitted she could not quite understand why I chose a bus stop instead of a gallery, but she said she liked seeing young people express their voices. She spoke with great compassion for migrants and added that even for the locals, life was far from easy.
I found 9 bus stops in Brno with the names of the states and decided to place my installation there, to serve as a symbol of migration and foreignness.
From time to time, friends sent me photos, saying they had come across the stickers and thought I would like to see them. The project never gained wide attention, which was never the purpose anyway. What I really wished was to plant a fleeting thought about migration in the mind of a random passerby. Perhaps just for a moment, perhaps to grow later.
An essential aspect of exhibiting work in public spaces is linking the theme to its location. In this case, this connection is encoded in the names of the bus stops, where the key to the code is the country name.