NEWS / PRESS
I See The Sky From Where I Am, Union Station, MET lounge, Washington D.C.
Art At Amtrak
This series of three collages for Union Station in Washington, DC celebrates the vibrancy of the Nation’s Capital. Using fabrics from the many cultures that call Washington, DC home, the pieces combine architectural elements of the station (such as views of the grand departure hall and the ceiling coffers) with subtle references to the trains themselves. The central piece offers a sweeping view of Union Station’s hall, featuring a caryatid reimagined as the station's muse. Paying homage to a statue that once stood in the hall in 1908, this figure embodies the station’s spirit and history. Framed by Beaux-Arts design elements, traditional and contemporary fabrics, it is a transformation of the space into a dreamy tapestry of cultures. The two adjacent collages depict a centennial tree, symbolizing the nation's unity and growth, and a pattern landscape from an Amtrak journey along the East Coast, blending history, travel, and culture into a vivid narrative of diversity. Curated by Debra Simon
I Wake Up To The Sound Of Mountains (Walking Against The Wind), Laramie, Wyoming
High Iron, Monument Lab, Re:Generation 2024,
I Wake Up to the Sound of Mountains reflects Wyoming’s rugged landscapes and pays homage to the immigrant laborers who built the railroad—on lands once home to the Indigenous peoples. Through the boxcar’s painted surface, fabrics representing diverse immigrant communities meet symbols of Indigenous heritage like the light rays coming from Lakota, Sioux and Shoshone crafts, highlighting the layered histories of Wyoming. I researched this project for months before finally working on site last August, with the help of Laramie Public Art Coalition & the High Iron team: Laura McDermit, Aubrey Edwards and Conor Mullen, but also Olivia Ewing and other local artists who came to support me to finish the project facing the elements of Wyoming! (thank you so much) I painted the patterned mountains on a railroad boxcar that assembled all the projects and oral histories of the High Iron team project, created under Monument Lab’s Re:Generation 2024 initiative, which supports public art projects that amplify erased or underrepresented histories. This piece reimagines public space as a place of shared memory and connection, countering myths of the lone pioneer with the enduring contributions of many. I have never felt compelled to build monuments for great men. That isn’t the purpose of art, and it certainly isn’t my purpose in life. What if, instead, we transformed our public spaces into shared laboratories of experience—spaces that reflect forgotten histories, the relentless human efforts to conquer nature, and the elements that continue their journey unbothered by our presence? In "I Wake Up to the Sound of Mountains," I honor the unknown workers who once walked the land of Wyoming. As an immigrant, I encountered Wyoming through the lens of discovery when I arrived to create my artwork. I witnessed the mountains and listened to the wind beating the plains, shaping the landscape on a timeline indifferent to human existence. What must those immigrants have felt when they arrived to work in this desolate terrain? Who bore witness to their lives? Though nothing of them remains, the landscape endures—an ever-present monument to the backdrop of their existence. These unknown men, who brought their cultures with them, are honored through fabrics that reflect their origins. At the same time, the mountains are covered with patterns representing the indigenous peoples whose land was stolen from them. from our High Iron page
Working Background, Penn Station, New York
Art at Amtrak
NEW YORK, NY - Debra Simon Art Consulting and Amtrak have announced new, large-scale public art works by Chitra Ganesh and Eirini Linardaki now on display at New York Penn Station. For the first time since the series started at the station, Art at Amtrak has expanded from beyond the Amtrak Rotunda and 8th Avenue Concourse to the Hilton Corridor. “ Greek-French artist Eirini Linardaki’s new installation, Working Background, is a dynamic tribute to the people who keep New York Penn Station running. “It’s very important for me,” Linardaki said, “because my dad worked as a bus driver most of his life, and I accompanied him a lot, looking at the city through his perspective.” Motivated by her personal connection to public transportation, Linardaki met and photographed the station’s workers, “from electricians to cleaning personnel, conductors to customer service representatives,” to incorporate as the subjects of her murals. Inspired by the energy of the nearby Garment District, Linardaki used fabrics—from Hawaiian shirts to African patterns—reminiscent of the clothing she saw at the station, and digitally collaged and layered these textiles to compose brightly colored tableaus incorporating the workers she met. The large-scale mural panels, while digital, retain a tactile, embroidered texture embodying the “tapestry of the city.” Working Background highlights the people who make Penn Station function, and also embraces the rich textures and fabrics of the adjacent neighborhood, making visible the pride these workers take in their roles and acknowledging the centrality of Penn Station to the city’s fabric. many thanks to Amtrak employees who accepted to be part of my work many thanks to Debra Simon, my curator who trusted me to bring this work to completion.
Diaphanous Pareidolia for Grand Central Madison, NYC by greek-french artist Eirini Linardaki
MTA Arts & Design commission, five-screen digital animated artwork,
Diaphanous Pareidolia, five-screen digital animated artwork
Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design, Grand Central Madison in NYC
I am so proud to share this project with you and all the passengers who travel through Grand Central Madison in the heart of New York City. Thank you to MTA Arts & Design for developing its fantastic public art program and for allowing me to create and install this series of animations designed for Grand Central. Ten years after my first project in the USA, one of my dreams has come true - to display art with the MTA for public transportation users. As the proud daughter of a bus driver, my dad often took me with him on his morning bus routes, and I fondly remember sitting at the front and chatting along the way. I know if he were still here, he would be smiling. Look closely at the animations in this 95-foot-long installation, and you will see many of my friends and family represented as train passengers, including my mom, brother, and dad (who is driving the passing bus!). All the pattern collages you see reflect the multiculturalism of the city's communities through their colors, designs, and styles. Thank you to everyone who participated in this project - I am so happy to be part of the MTA Arts & Design program. And a special thank you to my friend Bruno Monteny, who helped me with so many of the technical aspects of this animation program. https://new.mta.info/document/131176
Sanctuary City, installation printed on vinyl, Athens, Greece
Sanctuary City is a new work by the visual artist Eirini Linardaki, activated in the public space of Fokionos Negri street in Kypseli, Athens, on March 28, 29, and 30, 2023, and accompanied by a public program of conversations and workshops.
It is a socially engaged art project developed with the input of children and young people from both established and more recently arrived communities in the 6th District of the Municipality of Athens.
The title “Sanctuary City” is a reference to the term used in ancient Greek democracies about sacred places, as well as to the municipal jurisdictions that, most typically in North America, resist the efforts of the national governments to enforce immigration law. The sanctuary is the refuge that people were at all times entitled to seek, but nowadays is often overruled by hostile migration policies.
The work was commissioned by Counterpoints (UK/GR), and was developed in collaboration with the 26th Primary School of Athens, Network for Children’s Rights (NCR), Unicef Greece, Athens Comics Library, and The Home Project.
read more here: https://counterpoints.org.uk/sanctuary-city/
Diaphanous, projected animated collage on BQE, Brooklyn, New York
The DUMBO projection project, March-April 2024,
This project was initially created during the inaugural phase of Audible's Newark Artist Collaboration
Audible collaborates with Newark artists to create large-scale artworks downtown, from a comic-book mural, to historically inspired billboards, to child-friendly sculptural seating at the Newark Public Library. Hear from artists Cazorla + Saleme, Hans Lundy and Malcolm Rolling of YENDOR, Eirini Linardaki, and Noelle Lorraine Williams about their projects, and from Don Katz, founder of Audible.
WAVES / PASSAIC (IMMIGRATION AND HISTORY), Linardaki Eirini, (sidewalk 2019 and mural 2023)
Treat Place, Newark project made with Four Corners Public Arts and Newark Arts, July 2023
All photos by Rachel Fawn Alban @fawn_photos coordinated by Project for Empty Space and Rebecca Jampol
I cried a river over, Eirini Linardaki and Vincent Parisot, Marbles, Agios Nikolas, Crete, 2020-2021
The Spirit of the Stairs, curated by Eleni Koukou and Theofilos Trampoulis, invites artists to create original works in the network of stairs of Agios Nikolaos in Crete.
This work was created as part of the inaugural phase of Audible’s Newark Artist Collaboration.
Image Credit: Rachel Fawn Alban, Courtesy of Audible, Inc.
Marmaromaimou, wall painting, Natural History Museum of Crete, Greece, Vincent Parisot, 2021