ABOUT THE PROJECT

Performance, 1988
Washington Street Station
Boston, Massachusetts

Subway Rebus was a traveling lunchtime performance moving from Cambridge, Massachusetts to the Washington Street subway station in downtown Boston. Highly ritualized performance activities such as pushing the 'voice' broom through subway tunnels, traveling the trains wearing the 'hello' beard, and beating the air on subway platforms with the 'must-do' paddles, interrupted and overturned social norms shared commuters negotiating the congested walkways, platforms and subway cars of the transit system. Subway Rebus was commissioned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Cambridge Office of Public Art.