Our video compilation captures the daily lives of five Macaulay Honors students at Queens College, showcasing how we each carve our own paths through NYC’s landscape to reach our shared academic home. While many see commuting as just getting from point A to B, our project reveals something deeper about the college experience. Every morning, we each leave our own neighborhoods and travel via different modes of transportation- some driving through traffic, others navigating the subway system, some taking the bus. These separate paths all lead to the same place, Queens College, where our individual stories converge. The beauty of this project lies in its reflection of the broader college experience: We may all come from different backgrounds and take different routes to get here, but we form a community despite (and maybe even because of) these differences. The daily commute becomes a metaphor for how diverse paths can lead to meaningful connections. We hope viewers will reflect on how their own daily journeys, though seemingly routine, are part of a larger story of community and connection. It’s a reminder that even when we feel alone in our daily travels, we’re all heading somewhere together.
The World Outside the Window: The Rhythm of Life in New York as Seen Through the Window
Group Members: Shayla Angus, Jada Alyanna Chico, Anna Jacob, Rameshwar Tilacknauth, Jiahe Xu
How did completing your project help you explore the role of arts in the lives of New Yorkers and their communities?
The process of documenting our diverse commutes revealed how New Yorkers experience their city as both observers and artists. Through filming our daily journeys, we captured the true beauty of city life – how thousands of people move through shared spaces while remaining in their own worlds. Our project transformed ordinary commutes into art by finding beauty in the mundane: the rhythm of subway doors, the patterns of traffic lights, the parallel lives briefly intersecting. It showed how New York City itself serves as both canvas and gallery, where every commuter is simultaneously audience and performer in the city's daily show. By highlighting five distinct paths to the same destination, we explored how art can bridge individual experiences into shared stories. Just as New York's public art brings beauty to shared spaces, our project turned private journeys into a collective narrative that resonates with anyone who's ever been part of the city's daily migration.
