Behind VA Shadows, in partnership with the Harvard Square Business Association and Intercontinental Management, is pleased to welcome “On My Way to Work”, the latest installation at the 25/8 artspace project located at 2 Linden Street in Harvard Square. Behind VA Shadows presents this group exhibition curated by Nemo Xu, on view through October 2nd, 2025. This exhibition reveals rich storytelling, emotions, and reflections on commuting and its interconnecting relationships with work, life, and creativity through a diverse range of media, including paintings, drawings, photographs, collages, prints, video art, and audio art. “On My Way to Work” features the works of Cameron Boyce, Abby Fenn, Adric Giles, John Harrison, McCall Hollister, Colleen de Matta, C. Pellegrini, Joel Rabadan, Kayla Scullin, Christina M. Tedesco, Yasmine Whaley-Kalaora, Jarrod White, Liuxizi Yang, Yu Yin, Reina Yuan, and Zihui Zhou.
Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, commented, “We’re so pleased to continue our collaboration with Intercontinental Management and Yolanda He Yang on this, our third art installation at the 25/8 artspace. This popup gallery exhibits beautiful artwork that is to be enjoyed “from the street” in an unexpected location in Harvard Square.!”
According to the curator, the exhibition title, “On My Way to Work,” intends to act as an opening sentence for a story. Therefore, she invites artists to reflect on the experiences of moving across different physical, psychological, and intellectual spaces, asking questions such as “What occupies your mind when you’re physically contained in transit?” and “How do artistic ideas or thoughts flowthrough these spaces, and what comes out of it?”
Drawing on artists’ lived experiences from five countries, the exhibition is thematically organized into three sections–self-portrait, representations of the journey, and snapshots of the commute–corresponding to the three-windowed layout of the gallery space. It begins with the self-portrait theme deriving from de Matta’s photograph of herself: the bodily change brought forth by alopecia areata altered her experience of commuting on public transit, introducing a changing dynamic between self-perception and the public space with which we constantly interact. Pellegrini’s transport zine speaks to this intimate relationship between the self and the public space, recording a journey of growing familiarity and comfort with a bus line. In Zhou, Scullin, Harrison, and Giles’s works, the artists employ a metaphorical approach to depict themselves, connecting to a stranger on the train, a fabulously out-of-place chair, or a collage of changing states of mind. The following space showcases vivid forms of storytelling about commuting through the works of Fenn, Boyce, Tedesco, and Yin. Led by the character of Tedesco’s painting series, viewers embark on a vibrant visual journey, encountering Fenn’s recreation of flora and trash in a delicately constructed quilting form. Boyce and Yin both highlight the dimension of time and its relevance in how we experience the working world: from the impulse towards counting down to a fictional space enabled by late night subway rides after working overtime. The final section provides a representational depiction of commuting, situating viewers in these captured moments. Giles and Boyce’s works record a sense of fleeting moments, adding layers of emotional complexity towards the duality of time spent on commuting. Still and motion images are effective means of ceasing the moments: Whaley-Kalaora archives humorous objects found on her run to work, Hollister collects the changing landscapes, and Yang juxtaposes a concrete underpass with rhythmic seascape. Yuan’s textual narrative transports readers to her adjustment to a new city and a new identity, further exemplifying the role of commutes in bonding with the space we reside. Also working in the realm of abstract language, Rabadan’s series of watercolor postcards deliberately treats the commuting routes as an invisible, yet governing, negative space, visualizing the landscapes one maneuvers through; its mail art form enriches a conceptual layer of the show, paralleling the artworks’ journey of traveling to their exhibition space. Facilitated by the curator and collaborating with the participating artists, White creates an exhibition-specific sound piece based on recordings of commuting by the artists, offering another dimension of sensory experiences to the viewers while contextualizing the exhibited works.
As a curatorial project born out of Xu’s experience working as a Visitor Assistant at the ICA/Boston, On My Way to Work investigates complex relationships between work and life, especially amongst museum workers where creativity and artistic expressions are often found as a common denominator. The exhibition is a contemplation on the necessity and the cost of work for individuals. Additionally, it probes how people sustain dual identities of workers and creatives, which resonates with the work of Behind VA Shadows. Together, the exhibition presents a nuanced picture of commuting, foregrounding individual autonomy in recounting lived experiences and how each of us finds “comfort, freedom, rumination, and connections” throughout the journey.
About Behind VA Shadows
Founded in 2022, Behind VA Shadows is a public art initiative currently based at 2 Linden Street in Cambridge, MA. The project seeks to amplify the voices of working artists employed within art museums and cultural institutions by breaking down the traditional barriers between art and the public. Through its ongoing programming at 25/8 artspace, curated by Yolanda He Yang and co-presented by the Harvard Square Business Association and Intercontinental Management, Behind VA Shadows reclaims space for experimental, accessible, and community-rooted art practices.