Bus Parts was originally commissioned with a Jerome Foundation Book Arts award in 2001. The project was inspired by the artist’s time on Twin Cities buses, and made possible, in part, by Metro Transit, who generously provided the bus doors. The drawings and writing for the project were generated on the bus, and in dialogue with fellow bus riders and drivers. A fellow artist at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Richard Stephens, was a bus driver, and through his kind introductions, the artist interviewed many bus drivers about their experiences driving.
These doors were installed in the City of St. Paul City Hall for many years. Upon renovation of the space, the doors became homeless and eventually landed back at Metro Transit, their original home. They are now on display in a building used by bus drivers for breaks, lockers, check-in/check-out, etc.
“For many years, the bus was my carrier. When I created Bus Parts, I was riding the bus an average of two hours a day between jobs at a youth shelter and a museum. The project Bus Parts reflects on the communal and sensory nature of metro transit. In Passage, sketches and text edited from two years of bus observation are amplified onto bus doors and a backing wall. Each door focuses on relations formed on the bus.” - Susannah Bielak
Susannah Bielak
“I am a Chicago-based artist and writer, curator and cultural producer, and educator with expertise in cross-disciplinary collaboration, public engagement, and research.
As an artist and writer, I respond to issues including migration, displacement, and the relationship between domestic life and disaster. In the process, I mine personal and political histories, texts, and archives to find the allegorical possibilities and poetics of people, places, and materials.
With roots in Jewish, Mexican, and Eastern European diasporas, my work continually engages hybridity and the multiple—hybrid identities and forms; multiple histories and perspectives. My projects have ranged from a happening staged on a seismic shake table to engravings on kitchen table tops, and from town hall meetings to drawings made with my breath. My collaborators have included rodeo cowboys, bus drivers, a barbershop quartet, military veterans, choreographers and engineers.”
Artist’s Website: susybielak.com
