Public Art

The Romance Of Travel, Tonee Harbert And Shoshannah White, All Pieces Digital C-Prints On Aluminate, 48" X 48", 2004.

Tracks, By Tonee Harbert.

The Romance Of Travel, Tonee Harbert And Shoshannah White, All Pieces Digital C-Prints On Aluminate, 48" X 48", 2004.

Tonee Harbert and Shoshannah White.

Road, by Shoshannah White.

Road, by Shoshannah White.

Portland Intermodal Percent for Art: Tonee Harbert & Shoshannah White

Taken the bus from Portland recently? The train? If so, perhaps you have noticed that the terminal and the tramway have been graced with exceptionally refined, romantic portraits of travel. A new facility, Portland Intermodal, located off Congress Street in Portland, Maine, represents a collaboration among the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT), which generated the Percent for Art monies, Concord Trailways and Amtrak. After due process, the proposal of Tonee Harbert and Shoshannah White, The Romance of Travel, was selected by a committee consisting of a representative of Concord Trailways, MDOT and Portland art gallery owners.

This was the first time Sue Moreau from the Maine Department of Transportation was involved in the selection of art through the Percent for Art process and she is delighted with the outcome. Moreau said “Art always adds emotion and life to a project. Through the Harbert/White piece we were able, without words, to illustrate the collaborative nature of the project – a rare instance of two businesses in direct competition with each other, successfully coming together in a shared space."

Shoshannah White, speaking for the team, reflects on the project as “an opportunity to seek out and experience the beauty of the northeast. We created this body of work with the idea of piecing together fragments of travel imagery to prod people's memories and fuel their excitement about travel."

The Percent for Art project at the Portland Intermodal facility perfectly exemplifies the power of art, its capability to bring people together, expand understanding, give a voice to complex subjects and simply be beautiful.