Metro News Release
For immediate release: July 13, 2007
Dupont Circle Metrorail station artwork to be unveiled
Metro riders who use the Dupont Circle Metrorail station can read the words of Walt Whitman on the granite wall that encircles the bank of escalators at the Q Street (north) entrance. The poetry engraving is part of Metro's latest art installation and it honors caregivers of people living with HIV/AIDS in the early years of the epidemic.
Metro and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities partnered to install the literary-based art project at the station. The two-part installation consists of two poems, "The Dresser" by Walt Whitman and "We Embrace" by E. Ethelbert Miller, a contemporary poet and Howard University professor. The poems were selected as a tribute to caregivers.
Metro will officially unveil the art project at Dupont Circle at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 14.
"We now honor the hundreds of volunteer men and women who came forward in the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic when so little was known, but when the horrors were most profound. Under the most trying circumstances, these efforts made the critical difference. As volunteer president of Whitman-Walker Clinic in the early 1980s, I well remember those trying times and the great strengths of the people who made it just a bit more humane," said Metro Board Member Jim Graham, who initiated the project.
"Metro is honored and humbled to dedicate this important and significant art project as a tribute to the selfless people—the health care workers, volunteers, family members and friends—who cared for the men and women in our community who live with HIV/AIDS in the early years of the epidemic," said Metro General Manager John Catoe. "We hope that the poetry reminds all of us about the importance and necessity of their caring work."
Whitman's 1865 poem is being carved at the entrance to the station. The poem evokes Whitman's service to wounded soldiers during the civil war and serves as a tribute to health care workers who responded in the 1980s when little was known about AIDS and HIV. Miller's poem, which also acknowledges caregivers, will be engraved at the base of a circular bench to be installed at street level along the Q Street entrance near Connecticut Avenue. The project, to be completed in August, was funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
"This project, in a particularly poignant way, is a perfect example of what art in transit is all about—recapturing the otherwise anonymous moments of travel," said Metro's Art in Transit Program Manager Michael McBride. "The poems are so powerful, they force the reader to return to the moment."
Metro's Art in Transit Program, installs artwork throughout the Metrorail system to enhance the travel experience of Metro customers, and works with artists, community groups, government agencies and businesses to select and install artwork that captures the spirit and vitality of the region.
News release issued at 12:00 am, July 13, 2007.