Spotify worked with the transport authorities to reimagine David Bowie’s local subway station as a museum exhibition space. This meant access to several areas previously unavailable to advertising, such as the station’s structural beams, which allowed for a 150-ft anamorphic centerpiece. Altogether, we created over 40 unique pieces in large format prints, including never-before-seen photographs from longtime collaborators, personal items from his Archive, recreated the infamous “David Bowery” street sign, and commissioned a new painting from the artist who created the art for Space Oddity. Each piece came with a gallery-style description card with the distance to the place mentioned, and a Spotify code that plays the song it inspired. Turnstiles, pillars, stairs, etc. were covered in a specially created orange motif to help guide commuters through the experience. Vending machines at Broadway-Lafayette Station issued “Tickets to Mars,” limited-edition MetroCards featuring Bowie’s different personas.

Before music legend David Bowie passed away two years ago, he was often spotted in SoHo, New York City, where he lived for the last two decades of his life. He had confessed to having “a sentimental attachment to the city since I was 17” and would later in life declare, “I am a New Yorker.” So when the world-touring DAVID BOWIE IS exhibition arrived in New York City, it felt especially poignant to pay tribute to one of its most famous residents at his local subway station.