bus art in panama city

panama city is the shit. no, listen to me. it smells like piss, it´s ugly, it is super americanized (but not american, do you understand?). it´s like midgar from final fantasy 7 with more jungle and....okay, maybe not, but it´s great.



but the best part? the public transportation. when i first came to olympia, the first place i visited on this trip, i was immediately smitten. their public transit is cute, it´s mostly honest, no ads on their buses and at most some psas about washing your hands or condoms or something silly. i loved it, it was such a breath of fresh air, especially compared to edmontons ads over the windows, making it impossible to see where the fuck you were. now, why i am i so concerned over buses? fuck if i know, maybe i am autistic. buses are important. i liked olympia´s buses because of the room to breath. now, anyways, that´s pretty minor compared to down here. in panama (and other places in this part of the world, but so far panama has the best!) they don´t just allow room to breath: they exercise this idea that we up north always dream about: the idea of space for public art, at least on the buses. i think that panama is a fantastic (if absolutely ridiculous) representation of what could be.





. i am definitely for destroying uniformity and collectivizing the redecoration of our buses (and our buildings and our streets and our everything really). wizards smoking pipes everywhere. yes.



apparently there is a war to get rid of this art and standardize everything like a good american city. according to the internet it´s been going on for years, and according to some locals it´s going away in august (but who knows, really?). of course i am never coming back to this city if they get rid of it.




i´m not sure how they´re designed. obviously it´s not one bus per driver or what, there must be too high of a turn over rate for that. but some of it´s pretty personal, like portraits of mothers and children and shit. anyone (as if this blog has readership outside my circle of friends, hah!) who knows please tell me. i am terribly interested.