Forward Motion

Project Description

Michele Asselin is best known for her photographic portraiture focusing on individual identities within larger social constructs. Her past work includes a series of portraits of domestic workers and a series of photographs about the loss of Hollywood Park Race Track. For this artwork, Asselin has created luminous portraits of an urban planner, mechanic, bus operator, rail security officer and other professions. The artist found inspiration in the personal and professional stories that drew her subjects to Metro. 

Forward Motion was installed on the occasion of Womens’ History Month 2019 and celebrates women working in a range of professions at Metro. It also features members of the inaugural Women and Girls Governing Council created by Metro CEO Phil Washington. The Council is tasked with exploring ways Metro can achieve a more gender-balanced workforce, accelerate career advancement for women and improve mobility for female ridership. 

Visit the expanded page on Forward Motion here. 

Artist Statement

With Forward Motion, I want to highlight the women of Metro as well as the environments in which they work. My hope is that the Metro patrons who experience these artworks will understand these women to be guides, guardians and builders of Los Angeles.

The exhibition Forward Motion is accompanied by a booklet that presents each stunning portrait and statement by the featured women. All our publications are available to the public in digital and print versions (while supplies last). If you would like to receive the print publication, please call 213.922.4ART.

About the Artist

MICHELE ASSELIN is a photographer exploring the impact of social constructs on human experience. She draws on editorial techniques to examine how people and places come to reflect the systems of which they are a part. Her work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Esquire, and New York Magazine. Asselin has been an artist-in-residence for the National Domestic Workers Alliance and has collaborated on projects with social organizations, Street to Home in New York City and The Institute For Facial Paralysis in Los Angeles. In 2017 Asselin’s work was included in the Orange County Museum of Art Pacific Triennial: Building as Ever and in 2019, featured in a solo show at There-There Gallery. Since, she has completed public art commissions in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and The City of Inglewood. Her first book, Clubhouse Turn, published by Angel City Press, was released in February 2020. Asselin lives and works in Los Angeles.