NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 22: New Yorkers shocked and angered by the unexpected election of Donald Trump as President leave messages on colored note paper on the wall of the Union Square subway station in Manhattan on November 22, 2016. The message board of post-its is an art project titled “Subway Therapy” by the artist Matthew Chavez.
New Yorkers seeking to unburden themselves after last week's election got a chance to share their feelings by posting sticky notes in a busy subway tunnel.
The project was the brainchild of artist Matthew Chavez, who first invited people to leave notes in a passageway between two subway lines after the 2016 election.
“People will walk up and spend one minute and come up to me and say, ‘Wow, this is amazing. This made my day. This made my week. I really needed this,' " Chavez said on Friday. "It seems like such a small thing, but it can be really, really important to the people that participate.”
Chavez, 36, said the project was not a reaction to the election of Republican Donald Trump as president but that "because it invites people to express how they’re feeling at the time that they’re feeling it, certainly the context of the election influences what people write about.”
Quickly scribbled notes went up on the tiled wall under 14th Street in Manhattan as Chavez spoke.
Some examples: “RIP DEMOCRACY.” “WORLD PEACE NOW.” “What will our next revolution look like?” “Knicks really better win tonight! The horrors persist but so do I.” (The New York Knicks did win Friday, defeating the Milwaukee Bucks 116-94.)
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“I put that I choose kindness even when it’s hard because I’ve had a hard time wanting to lash out whenever I’ve been treated not so awesome by some people recently," Danielle Guy said after posting her note. "And it’s easy to want to be mean back, but being kind is the best thing to do.”
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Another contributor, Mallie Lyons, said she liked the subway therapy project and its site. “I feel like this is a really good idea," she said. “I mean, I think especially somewhere where people can walk by and physically see what other people are feeling and what other people are thinking I think is such a beautiful thing.”
The project ended over the weekend, but Chavez is looking for possible locations for future iterations, even if they are not as good as the subway tunnel.
“People have so much to say,” he said. "And I love being in places where people are moving from one place to another. They just stop. They real quick get something off their chest, and then they’re on their way.”
