Airport art

Airport Amenity of the Week: SFO’s Golden Gate Park ‘activation’

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San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has an ongoing program celebrating the city’s neighborhoods and cultural events.

The newest activation shines a light on the rich history of live music performances in Golden Gate Park with a photo essay, live performances, and a photo station in Terminal 3, Boarding Area F.

“From Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s to Lizzo in the 2020s; from the Summer of Love to Outside Lands and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Golden Gate Park has long been a Bay Area epicenter of music and culture,” SFO reminds us.

The new activation, SFO Celebrates: Music in Golden Gate Park will feature live music performances on August 26th and September 1st & 2nd.

On a stage near the F Food Court, there’s a two-sided backdrop where travelers can put themselves into the picture with the Grateful Dead in the 1960s or with Billie Eilish today.

And there’s a photo Exhibition in the F Concourse along the moving walkway, featuring photos of memorable performances in Golden Gate Park that have taken place over the past 60 years.

First Nations Welcome Figure lands at Vancouver Int’l Airport

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‘The Story of Frog Woman and Raven,” by Dempsey Bob, courtesy Vancouver Airport Authority

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is well-known for its impressive art program featuring the work of many First Nations people.

Throughout and around the airport, passengers see art that draws on and invokes the themes of land, sea and sky. 

This week, the Vancouver Airport Authority righted a past cultural wrong in the airport art program by installing a new Musquem Indian Band welcome figure near the International Arrivals Area, in Chester Johnson Park.

The newly raised welcome figure, carved by ʔəy̓xʷatələq (Musqueam artist Brent Sparrow), is visible when you exit YVR’s International Terminal and is in a spot significant to Musqueam culture.

Courtesy Vancouver Airport Authority

Musqueam are the original stewards of Sea Island, which is the land where the airport is now located. And, per an agreement made between the airport and the Musqueam in 2017, the Indigenous artworks at the airport and on Sea Island are to be created by Musqueam, reflect their culture and tradition, or be approved by the Musqueam.

That’s why the airport also moved three traditional Gitxsan poles from the airport to a nearby park.

The poles were created in 1970 by Gitxsan hereditary chiefs and students, and have been on loan to YVR from the Museum of Vancouver since 1995. The poles at YVR predate the airport’s agreement with Musqueam and were moved because, while Indigenous artwork, they do not represent the Musqueam, whose land they were on.

Phoenix Sky Harbor Int’l Airport debuts its eighth new concourse

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Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) begins welcoming passengers at a new concourse today.

The new, state-of-the-art, eight-gate concourse will be used soley by Southwest Airlines. Amenities include charging stations in every seat, an Animal Relief Area, a Family Restroom and a Nursing Room. Hearing loop connectivity allows those with hearing devices to connect to the PA system.

For now, passengers will find kiosks offering food, beverage, and retail items. Shops, restaurants, and a Chase Sapphire Lounge by the Club are set to open in the coming months.

Local favorites Pedal Haus Brewery and Berry Divine – Acai Bowls will be in the new concourse as well as regional concepts Bobby’s Burgers, Eegee’s and others.

Retail shops will include national brands as well as local products from Changing Hands Bookstores, Made Art Boutique, and Melrose Pharmacy.

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The new concourse also showcases the arts and includes a terrific-looking terrazzo floor depicting aerial views of the Phoenix landscape. 28 terrazzo wall pieces are shaped like airplane windows.

The work is called “Phoenix Lights, Phoenix Rising” and is designed by artist Susan Logoreci.

5 Things We Love About HEL – Helsinki Airport

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Beyond, or perhaps we should say despite, its great airport code – HEL- Helsinki Airport, operated by Finavia, offers travelers some charming and thoughtful amenities in its new main terminal.

Here are some snaps from a tour on our way home from a week exploring Finland after joining Finnair on the first flight from Seattle to Helsinki.

Here are 5 of the amenities we loved.

Welcome to Helsinki

Passengers entering the arrivals hall – and those waiting for their friends or loved ones to arrive – are greeted with a calming indoor garden with live plants.

Thoughtful, automatic sanitizing

Is that handrail clean? In most airports, we don’t know. But at Helsinki Airport you can grab on with confidence because the handrail is automatically sanitized all the time.

Art with a sense of place

‘Aukio’ (by Gate 40) is an oasis where passengers can wind down and experience Finnish nature.

The curved 360° LED screen is a projection, soundscape, and interactive wall offering a journey through Finland’s nature and its four seasons. The landscapes change every 10 minutes, the speakers play nature sounds, and an interactive screen lets visitors create art with snowflakes, the Northern Lights, or autumn leaves.

Souvenirs

Airport shops offer everything from Finnish clothing and accessories by Marimekko to licorice-flavored liquors, reindeer pate, and bear meat. (If that’s your thing…)

Christmas Cabin

Santa’s year-round home is in Finland, Finns and others will tell you. So it makes sense that Helsinki Airport has a Christmas Cabin right there in the terminal.

Inside is a faux sauna, a storybook, Scandinavian-style furniture and decorations, and a Book of Names so that Santa knows who has been good or bad.

Art scavenger hunt at PHL Airport

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This summer, passengers at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) have a fun way to spend their dwell time, engage with art, and maybe win a prize.

In PHL’s Art Puzzle Challenge guests seated at the airport’s large B-C food court will find tabletop decals with a scannable QR code. The code is also on B and C info counters and on 4 art exhibition locations.

The code first gives directions to puzzle 1, which is Kiki Aranita’s exhibition of re-created yarned snacks and sauces based on her Korean/Hawaiian heritage. 

In that first stop, players will be asked to find an object named after a Hawaiian island. (Hints are provided).

When that piece of the puzzle is completed, passengers are directed to the other three exhibitions and asked to locate an element of the art. When all 4 pieces of the puzzle are solved, passengers may submit their information online and receive a prize from PHL’s exhibition program: 6 artist-made pins that feature PHL and a selection of international destinations.



The art scavenger hunt kicks off Tuesday, May 31, and is designed by Eric Dale, who creates puzzle challenges for Philly street art. As the art exhibitions at PHL change, the puzzle challenge will be updated. (Photos courtesy PHL Airport).

Year-round poetry at Indianapolis International Airport

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Indianapolis International Airport (IND) hosted a Poetry Day this week with poetry readings and live music in honor of National Poetry Month.

But there’s poetry at IND year-round.

A video exhibit on Concourse A features a selection of poems by Mari Evans, one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement.

A poem by Mari Evans is one of the six poems featured in a series of 14 floor-to-ceiling glass panes in the concourses. The mural collection, The Indiana Windows, is the work of British artist Martin Donlin, who created the poetry-inclusive mural series using more than 2,000 hand-blown panes of glass.

Airport Amenity of the Week: PHL flight pins

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The Airport Amenity of the Week is Philadelphia International Airport’s (PHL) celebration of summer flights marked by a collection of artist-made pins.

We spotted them in a tweet a while back and admired them.

And PHL was kind enough to send a batch to Stuck at the Airport’s headquarters.

The package was larger than we thought. And we were pleased to see that not only are the pins larger than we thought – 2 inches across – but that there’s also a bright poster also celebrating the return of many European flights this summer between Amsterdam, Madrid, Athens, Rome, Dublin, Venice, and many other destinations.

It’s a great way to draw attention to the return of flights. A great new airport collectible. And a great way to support local artists and promote the airport.

So, we’ll declare this art, and the idea, the Airport Amenity of the Week.

Spot a cool new airport event, effort, or amenity? Nominate it for Airport Amenity of the Week by leaving a comment below.

What I learned about Dallas Love Field Airport

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The team that produces “Love Field Stories,” the official podcast of Dallas Love Field Airport (DAL), was kind enough to include me as a guest for two upcoming episodes.

The two-parter delves into the unique history of the airport and highlights some of the wonderful art that can be spotted in and around the terminal.

The episodes will be live-streamed on Tuesday, April 12, and on May 10 at 12:30 p.m. (Central) on Love Field’s Facebook and YouTube and will include images of many of the historical events and artwork we discuss.

The podcast can also be heard on Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora.

To produce the podcast, DAL teamed me up with Bruce Bleakley, who is an aviation historian and co-author of The Love Evolution: A Centennial Celebration of Love Field Airport and Its Art.

We called it a conversation. But really, it’s me getting to pick the brain of the airport’s historian. I asked Bleakley about how, in 1958, Dallas Love Field’s new terminal building came to have the first moving walkway at any airport in the world. And why there was an ice-skating rink in the terminal. And about the role that Dallas Love Filed played on that day in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president on the DAL tarmac.

In this two-part podcast, we also learn the stories behind some of the great art that passengers walk over and walk by at DAL.

And I get Bleakley to tell us which city’s name is spelled wrong in the airport’s first commissioned piece of art. A detail he didn’t even share in his book.

I hope you’ll tune in!

Courtesy Frontiers of Flight Museum, Dallas

Fresh art at Miami International Airport

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(Kristi Bettendorf, Lignum vitae, Guaiacum sanctum, and Honeybee, Apis mellifera, Courtesy of the artist.)
 

Pollinators art exhibition at MIA celebrates South Florida plants

Pollinators, the newest art exhibition at Miami International Airport, features watercolor and mixed media works that give a close-up view of plants from South Florida and their animal and insect pollinators.

Focusing on these complex natural relationships, members of the Tropical Botanic Artists Collective illustrated birds, butterflies, moths, bees, wasps – even aquatic zooplankton – with the plants they pollinate. The artists in Pollinators worked in collaboration with Biscayne National Park in Florida.

(Donna Torres, Wild Cotton, Gossypium hirsutum, and Western or European Honeybee, Apis mellifera, 2018, Courtesy of the artist.)

Find the Pollinators exhibition on Concourse E pre-security area on the arrivals level near Door 11.

Spring has sprung – in art – at PHX Airport

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The newest exhibition at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) offers an artistic look at the wide variety of plant and animal life in Arizona and the Sonoran Desert with work by 21 artists.

The diverse selection of artworks, all from the Phoenix Airport Museum’s own collection, includes a realistic bronze tortoise family, an embroidered and appliqued art chair with butterflies and flowers, and large vibrant paintings of cactus blooms – to name a few.

Persistent Plants and Desert Dwellers is in Phoenix Sky Harbor’s Terminal 3, on level 4, and is an inviting and colorful respite, especially for travelers from colder climates who will appreciate the sunshiny images.

Travelers can visit the exhibition in the post-security gallery while airport visitors without a flight ticket can see a sampling of works near the PHX Sky Train® portal through August 2022.