Rush hour on the London Underground: hundreds of strangers squashed up against each other, avoiding eye contact, all enduring more stress and less air than they would like.
If this scenario makes you think of a work of art it is probably Edvard Munch’s The Scream or perhaps something infernal by Hieronymus Bosch.
To the artist Michael Landy, however, Tube travel reveals human kindness in its most spontaneous form, and he is making a work of art that depicts this. His project, which begins tomorrow, will be an inescapable part of travel on the Central Line for at least the next 18 months.
The artist is best known for destroying all his possessions in the name of art ten years ago, an undertaking that apparently convinced him to take a more optimistic view of human nature.
Acts of Kindness is the result. Posters and leaflets will appear all over the Central Line inviting people who have experienced or witnessed altruistic gestures on the Underground to submit their stories. Landy will make poster artworks and stickers from the submissions, and these will begin to appear on trains and station platforms from July 23. Depending on their popularity, they could spread to the rest of the Underground network and become permanent installations. The hope is that the works will brighten travellers’ journeys by making them more aware of other people’s generosity as well as inspiring more people to behave better.
“I’m not talking about superheroic acts, about people saving people,” Landy said yesterday in his studio at the National Gallery, where he is artist in residence. “I’m talking about everyday acts that anybody can do, from giving up your seat to helping someone up a flight of stairs with their baby buggy or their shopping.
“It can be quite dehumanising going underground and getting compacted in with a whole lot of strangers, yet these acts of kindness are happening on the Tube all the time,” Landy added.
For the artist, the act of kindness itself is the “best bit”: an intervention that probably lasts only a few seconds but can transform the beneficiary’s day.
His 2001 work Breakdown was a commentary on the consumer society. Everything Landy owned was put on a conveyor belt in the former C&A store on Oxford Street and destroyed. It left him with some explaining to do to the Revenue about why he no longer had backdated accounts.
His latest project is funded by Transport for London and Arts Council England, which are contributing about half of the £45,000 cost each. It will explore “what value kindness has, what it means, and what kind of exchange is involved in giving someone a helping hand”, Landy said.
“I think sometimes it’s easier to remember those times when people have been unkind. But once you start to notice kindness you see it happening more and more.”
Peter Tollington, general manager of the Central Line, agrees. “People on the Underground are a lot kinder than we perhaps give them credit for,” he said.
“I’ve seen customers lend each other money to buy a ticket and they often go out of their way to assist those with luggage or children.
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