#adfreesubway
adfreesubway is a collection of processed photographs from stations in New York City's subway, particularly along Brooklyn's G line. there are thousands of wall spaces in the subway stations for rent to companies wishing to advertise to riders. during a routine trip on the train, you might see over a hundred ads on these wall spaces. most of the ads are for tv and movies. many of them are for mobile apps. some are PSAs by the local government or private utility companies or propaganda from the MTA itself. every month when ad space licenses expire, posters are torn down by MTA employees. some are partially torn down or manipulated before that. the highest-traffic ad spaces get replaced with new paid advertisements right away, but some spaces stay unrented for a few days. others stay unrented for whole months, and some in the lowest-traffic stations have ads from years ago and seemingly not-for-rent ad spaces with local spray tags. i like to imagine if the ads stopped coming and the city gave the space to public creative projects, how beautiful each station might look, and what kind of communication would happen through this medium. underneath the vapid focus-group-approved aesthetic of marketing best practices is a network of canvasses waiting to be reclamaimed and drawn on by local creative spirit.
