Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Turtle islands

An errand took me to the South Slope today. The spiky Brooklyn skyline, visible when the F train briefly curves overland, was barely recognizable. And then in the 7th Ave station I happened on one of the newest additions to the MTA station mosaic series, David Rios Ferreira's "Landscapes Adrift - cosmically woven and earthy bonded."

Inspired by the turtles in Prospect Park, it brings together all manner of images with turtle creation myths from many cultures, including those which see the world carried on the back of a turtle.

Building upon this narrative and drawing from his own TaĆ­no heritage (the Indigenous people of the Caribbean), Ferreira's artwork seeks to bridge present-day concepts of home with a shared cultural connection to the planet across time.

The rainbow-filled mosaics swirl along the white walls of the under-ground passageway leading to the station. Once past the turnstile, images in blue and white play against iridescent backgrounds. Cool!