New York sticks together: Subway Therapy sticky notes to be preserved

Subway Therapy, a collective project launched by the artist Matthew Chavez, in which members of the public affix their post-election sentiments to subway station walls on sticky notes, has a new home: the New-York Historical Society. “Ephemeral items in particular, created with spontaneity and emotion, can become vivid historical documents,” the president and chief executive of the New-York Historical Society, Louise Mirrer, said in a statement. The museum and archive will preserve a selection of the colourful notes, which express messages of grief, fear, hope and resolve—such as the Hillary Clinton quote “Women’s rights are human rights” and “Choose love”—and occasionally support for the president-elect Donald Trump. They were taken down from the Union Square subway station last week. “We’re going to preserve the Union Square sticky notes, because we will remember this as the moment New Yorkers united in such a moving way,” Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, tweeted. As a continuation of the project, new sticky notes—some of which will also be preserved—can be placed on a glass wall at the entrance of the New-York Historical Society from Tuesday, 20 December through inauguration day, 20 January 2017.