Project Overview

This project maps the experience (using multi-media) of riding the Metro. Although writers like Carlos Monsiváis and Juan Villoro have written on the relevance of the Metro to city life, there is still much more to say, see, and experience. In the project “El metro te mueve”, I would take students to Mexico for two weeks during Winter Term (January) 2016 to partake in this project that would produce two parts: an essay with historical information and an interactive map. First, a visit to the National Library is in order to do some research on the opening of the first Metro line (1968) and its subsequent expansion. Students would be trained on site on how to navigate the Mexican library system; no other requisite preparation is necessary. This first part would provide the historical context, and would result on a narrative written collaboratively, before embarking on our fieldwork to gather data for our map.

In this second part, students would ride all Metro lines, taking pictures (and using other supplementary multi-media available) of every station. Our Metro map would show pictures, information on the design on each line, and will have comments about the texture of local life at any particular metro station. Students will be trained on different types of multi-media we can use as we record the experience of moving through Mexico City in the Metro. Since some, if not at least half, of the stations are underground, with this project we would add an underground layer to our atlas. I’m hoping that once the Metro map is done we can visualize city growth and the need to expand public transportation to reach the new developed areas. Also, the art on every line would speak to us about the official (governmental) aesthetics agenda at the time of inauguration. Since we will gather different kids of data (historical, demographic, audio-visual), we are bound to draw diverse conclusions. This project is open to students from any of the participating institutions.