“A Data Love Letter to the Subway” is a digital installation created by Giorgia Lupi for the 40th anniversary of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s Arts & Design program. It’ll be on display at the Fulton Center in New York starting October 2025 and will last until January 5, 2026.

The installation covers all 52 digital screens (usually used for ads) at the Fulton Center. Every hour on the hour, a 2 – minute animation plays, and all 52 screens present a ‘visual narrative’ simultaneously.

Giorgia Lupi didn’t choose real – time passenger flow or train location data. Instead, she pulled data from the MTA’s open – data platform and the famous ‘Missed Connections’ bulletin board at the Fulton Center.

The core idea is to personify the 25 subway lines in New York as independent characters, giving each line a unique ‘personality’ based on data like the line’s age, length, route, whether it runs above ground, and its intersection and waiting relationships with other lines.

She explains, “Adults sometimes lose the ability to see the magic in everyday things. I wanna create a narrative that gives these lines a bit of personality, just like the characters in a children’s book.”

Video: https://youtu.be/QxiKZ8_-BVI