In Grey Line, I invented a plausible—though expensive and unlikely—train line for Chicago. This line is mapped out and added to a map of the Chicago transit system. I lived in Chicago when I created this work. The hypothetical Grey Line would have made commuting around the city much easier for myself and my friends.

When this work exhibited in Chicago, many gallery attendees had a similar connection with this piece. Numerous audience members offered enthusiastic anecdotes of how this line would benefit their life, allowing them to travel more easily to museums, sports complexes, favorite restaurants and bars, friends' homes, and places of work. Others were eager to edit the Grey Line to make it better fit their own life. It is as if this piece prompts viewers to join in and play urban planner with me.

This work existed in a couple of forms for the same exhibition. First, the image above was used as the promotional postcard for an exhibition at Dogmatic in Chicago. This allowed the piece to proliferate as a portable transit map, akin to the pocket maps available from the CTA. At the same time, it was included in the exhibition as an installation of a backlit train map, an aluminum light box, and green gelled fluorescent lighting. This created a believable suggestion of a train map at a Chicago train station, especially when gallery goers gathered around and openly debated which route would be best suited to their travels. For just a moment, through spontaneous roleplay, the Grey Line actually existed.