Transient 2010: NY Cabbie Films

Amir Baradaran and his confrontational art show have done it again with Transient 2010.  Amir’s short videos on the life and action of a cab driver will be on Taxi TV from Thurs. Sept. 9^th to Wed. Sept. 15^th.  Although the yellow cab is a symbol of New York City, drivers are quite anonymous people, often from third-world countries, and even more edgy, half of them are Muslim, or at least of Muslim-origins.  Many live in neighborhoods such as Harlem, Jamaica, and Bedford-Stuyvesant, from which they go to their work in posh districts of downtown Manhattan.  The drivers are further separated from passengers by a Plexiglas partition, meant to protect them, but also serving to enforce their isolation.  Baradaran used a hand-held camera to take basic moving shots of the driver, focusing on the gaze of the driver as seen reflected in the rear view mirror and at the passenger as well as traffic. 

.  For more information on Baradaran and his work, please go to http://amirbaradaran.com.