Rabbits&Rails: Public Transport as Public Space
28.09.2022
How often do you take a bus or a tram or use some form of public transport? Have you ever thought about why it is called public transport? And what makes it public? Is public transport a public space and how is it different from other places in the city which we use collectively?
Similar questions have been asked in the project Public Transport as Public Space in European Cities: Narrating, Experiencing, Contesting (PUTSPACE) and guided the creation of the temporary exhibition Rabbits&Rails: Public Transport as Public Space, realized in collaboration with the MoHu Centre of the University of Padua.
The PUTSPACE project unites academics and artists who have worked together for three years, from 2019 to 2022. Their work resulted in research findings and artworks which form two sections of this exhibition, until October 23at Museum of Geography of the University of Padua, that move across different European cities, from Turku to Tallinn, from Berlin to London, exploring the history and stories of public transport in Finland, Estonia, Germany and elsewhere. The first section, ‘Rabbits’, asks how different publics (users and providers, passengers and staff) interact with each other on public transport. The following section, ‘Rails’, using the example of trams, asks how and in what ways public transport takes in peoples’ lives and in cities.
The exhibition comes in the shape of a vehicle and thanks to the collaboration with the MoHu Centre for Adavanced Studies in Mobility and the Humanities it is now landed at the Museum of Geography in occasion of the T2M International Conference Mobilities: Disruptions and Reconnections. From September 23 to October 23 you can take an imaginary journey and explore stories from different European cities simply visiting Palazzo Wollemborg, in via del Santo 26, Padua. Thanks to the universal character of public transport, you can relate to these stories and reflect on your own trips wherever you live. Whether you are a regular or occasional public transport user, this exhibition may change the way you used to think about public transport before.
