Tate Gallery by Tube

Art on public transport: just the ticket, or off the rails?

Animations are being shown on London bus-stop roofs – but is art on trains, tubes and buses ever successful?

Hannah Freeman

guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012 16.06 GMT


Bus-Tops Photograph: Mark Bourdillon/Images courtesy of Arts Council England

If you happen to be on the top deck of a London bus over the next few months, you may glimpse a red LED screen playing a looped film on a bus-stop roof. This is Bus-Tops, a collaborative public art project installed at 30 locations across London – and anyone can submit their own art. The animations have already been diverse, from a dandelion clock loosening its seeds in the wind to the declaration I Like Turtles and the wrinkly legs of a strolling elephant.

But bus shelters are just the latest London public transport spots to double as art installations. Art on the Underground has been bringing art to London tube routes since 2000. Recent examples include Michael Landy's Acts of Kindness, which took over trains and station platforms before blossoming into a crowd-sourced goodwill project, and a tube map redesign by Yayoi Kusama. And if you have been to Canary Wharf station recently, you may have seen the screen installed there.

Back in 2007, bus passengers in Manchester alighted at stops that asked: "Where were you happiest to arrive and why?" They were invited to reply by text message. BlinkMedia, the people behind Anywhere blogs, reported that hundreds of texts were sent.

What about art projects where you live? Does art on transport even work? What are the best and worst examples you've come across?