The Faces of Central Bus Station

“ Photographs, because they can combine spatial immediacy with temporal anteriority and thus blur the usual experiential categories of time and space, can also shape futures. (McKay, 2008, 381)”

The first time I heard about JR I was twelve years old, in middle school in the suburbs of Paris. I was in the arts class and our teacher told us about JR’s project ‘Women are Heroes’ in Morro da Providencia, in Rio de Janeiro. At this time I had just moved from Brazil to France with my family, so I really connected to this project and have followed JR’s work ever since.

Family walking past poster installation at Central Bus Station, Tel Aviv, Israel, February 2023.

The ‘Faces of the Central Bus Station’ aimed to shed light on the life that goes on inside and out of the station; It is the second largest bus station in the world. Planned in 1994 but only officially launched in 1993, the megastructure encompasses 230,000 built square meters with the main floors lodging an extensive commercial center, while buses dock in surrounding streets and on the upper 3–4 floors and rooftop. Soon after it opened in the 90s, the neighborhood surrounding the station has become home to those whose financial means are insufficient to live elsewhere, mostly immigrants from Sudan, Eritrea, the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, alongside most homeless people and drug dealers.

Young participant's reaction to seeing the installation.

Some migrants hold legal work and permits of residency whereas others are rightless. The central bus station is an element within Tel-Aviv that can be viewed as representing that which has been repressed in general Tel Aviv society. This means that often marginalized and unwanted (by mainstream society) elements not visible outside of areas such as these are given a space to come to the surface. During the early 2000s, locals defined the surroundings of the Central bus station - the neighborhoods of Hatikvah, Shapira and Neve Sha’anan, as Tel Aviv's “dumping ground” (Margalit & Vertes, 2015, 228).

Volunteers working together to paste portraits.

The station is to me a space where everything and everyone seems to be always on the move at once. Within a labyrinth of worlds and people, different faces, languages, cultures, voices. An infinity of eyes. An intensity that was at many times hard to look at, sad to hear and simultaneously beautiful. A beauty which words will never be enough to describe, and that is why we photographed - The Faces of the Central Bus station. The station is a space which transmitted to me a lot of hardness and intensity, simultaneously an indescribable feeling of ‘home’. I learned photography by teaching the students at the organization I was volunteering with. Later I invited my friend and amazing photographer Moral Attar to teach with me and help me realize the vision of this project. 

Participant posing for their portrait.

The photo-shooting consisted of randomly stopping people on the streets but also through “bouche a oreille” with the people that got to see us on a daily basis. The street where the photos were pasted are the taxis drivers’ meeting point; we became friends with them quickly and they spoke between each other about the project which enabled us to find participants as well. I was at the station twice a day going to and coming back from work by bus, so that’s how I met the bus drivers. Some days I spent entire afternoons in the bike shop owned by one of the first participants; hundreds of different people from the neighborhood would come and he shared about the project to his friends and clients.

Passerby observing finished installation at Central Bus Station, Tel Aviv, February 2023.

The installation enabled us to bring together all neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, individuals from completely different backgrounds and occupations to create a work of art. We contacted the participants by phone beforehand to help us paste. Some of them pasted with us, others came after work on the same installation day, and a few couldn’t make it the same day, so they saw the photos after the installation. It was fulfilling to see so many faces working together, many different colors and worlds fused in this space that some rarely go to and others call ‘home’.

Participant observing their larger-than-life sized portrait.

The highlights were the smiles and expressions of surprise from the participants when seeing their faces pasted in that dimension on the wall. The excitement of our friends making and pasting the glue, but also voices of disappointment of people who claimed to work in this station for years, who we had not had the pleasure of meeting met during the course of the photo shooting days. In many ways this was a sign which showed how powerful and empowering it is to see ourselves in this dimension and the energy that was exchanged on the installation day. The Central bus station represents the complexity and aliveness of Israeli society - the line between its abandonment and the life that goes on within became increasingly blurred to me, simultaneously neglected and rich with stories and history.

Group Leader, Chloe Cohen and Photographer, Moral Attar shake hands at the final installation.

Follow-up of the action: Layers of Art
Three weeks after the installation day, the photos started to get damaged and ripped. I  decided to invite the people we photographed alongside friends - painters, writers, artists in general to add layers of art on the photos and continue the process of creation in a space of abandonment. We brought colors, brushes and sprays, people stopped by and started painting, sometimes staying with us for hours and others to just leave a brush stroke. It was beautiful to see the expressions of men, women, children, homeless people stopping by, painting with us; “Who are these people? What is the purpose of these photos? - These are the people who work here, spend time, and belong to this space. - Very beautiful, a passerby replies.”

Close-up image of painting details over a deteriorated poster.

I have also started asking the participants through the platform Beams - ‘how was the experience of seeing themselves on the wall and how it felt to hear their friends’ reactions’. This means that I am retracing all the locations where I have met the participants, their workplaces and contact numbers. One participant, Tommy, who I come to see on a regular basis passing by his shop, expressed in his words ‘this experience showed me that I am a citizen of the world and able to be anything I want.’

Participant painting over a deteriorated poster.

Currently, the municipality requests to take down the photos since it has been two months since the installation day (Feb 24th). So together with the artists that have painted the photos for ‘layers of art’ action, we are trying to recuperate and save the portraits as much as possible to reuse the works and continue to give life to this action.

It is beautiful to see that this action has inspired people that were part of the Faces of the Central Bus Station, like Edith who will be leading an Action and continue to shed light on the extraordinary communities of this city. The Inside Out project really enables us to voice in an impressive artistic way the communities that are ‘misheard’ and ‘unseen’; such as the individuals of the Central Bus station. Through the faces and the eyes, it gives importance to peoples’ stories, and this, I believe, is endlessly inspiring.

Close-up image of painting details over a deteriorated portrait.

See more from this Action here!