Contributing authors Jen Ray and Jason Forrest began Data Vandals in 2021 as an experiment to bring data out of the digital world and onto the streets. Driven by the conviction that meaningful change happens when art meets community, they have engaged thousands of people through exhibitions, performances, and workshops, collaborating with global brands, universities, and social groups worldwide.
The Data Vandals Newsstand at the 51st Street subway station, New York City.
On the downtown 6 subway platform at 51st Street and Lexington in New York City, there is a newsstand that hasn’t sold a paper in years. It’s one of dozens of underused corners scattered throughout the MTA; relics of a different era of public life, now largely ignored by the millions of riders who pass through each week. We looked at that empty kiosk and saw something else: a gallery. A community room. A place where the waiting becomes something more. It became the Data Vandals Newsstand.
Created as part of the MTA Vacant Unit Activation Program which transforms underused subway spaces with creative experiences for riders, the Data Vandals Newsstand is a vinyl-wrapped, public exhibition space where riders can see, touch, question, and add to the data that shapes their city.
Data Vandals is a collaboration between multidisciplinary artist Jen Ray and Jason Forrest, a data visualization expert and founding chair of the MPS Data Visualization & Communication program at the School of Visual Arts. Together, we’ve spent the last several years asking what happens when you take data out of the dashboard and put it where people actually live: on the street, on the wall, and in this case, on the platform.
Jen Ray and Jason Forrest.
DATA ART AS STREET LEVEL CULTURE
Every week, four million New Yorkers — roughly half the city — descend underground. They squeeze onto platforms at rush hour and ride alongside strangers they’ll never meet again. The subway is unglamorous and occasionally maddening, but it is also one of the few places left in the city where New York actually looks like itself: every neighborhood, every income level, every story, sharing the same twenty feet of platform.
That shared space is exactly why the subway matters — not just as infrastructure, but as a site of possibility. Yet the decisions that shape those riders’ daily lives are made using data they rarely get to see; numbers about rent, transit, policing, and schools that quietly dictate what’s possible in their neighborhoods, decided in meeting rooms most people never even know about.
We started Data Vandals because we believed that data doesn’t have to be something mysterious and proprietary – it can become a bridge towards a shared understanding. By combining the data with artistic practice, it becomes even more accessible.
“Data Vandals Newsstand” (detail), 51st & Lex. Downtown 6 train platform, 2026.
At the Newsstand, we want to help people connect their lived experience to the data in a friendlier, more empathetic way. By creating charts you can actually read, maps that reflect your neighborhood, and humorous illustrations, we want our work to feel like conversation starters. Each month, we’ll post new questions and invite riders to respond with sticker votes, story slips, and quick drawings. What’s your rent situation? Where do you feel safest? What do you miss about this neighborhood? What do you want to see change?
Those small gestures — a sticker placed, a slip dropped in a box — become micro-datasets. Over time, they accumulate into something larger: a living portrait of the community, revealing patterns, persistent worries, and unexpected joys from the people who actually live them.
USING DATA TO INVITE CONVERSATIONS
Over the years, we have been most surprised to hear that some people actually don’t love data. They told us they feel powerless in the face of data, that it washes over them, often feeling like something is being done to you, not for you. Most of that data lives in the digital world: on dashboards, in the news, and in reports that most people never open. The people most affected by these decisions are the least likely to have a seat at the table where those decisions get made.
New Yorkers don’t need to be convinced to have opinions. They just need a place to put them. Every month, the Newsstand will launch a new theme, refresh its murals and posters, and publish a free community Newsstand Newspaper — a print publication that blends neighborhood history with the fresh data and stories collected from riders that month. Think of it as a community portrait in real time: part local paper, part data report, part zine. It’s yours to take home.
Over the long term, our plan is to expand from this single location to multiple newsstands across the five boroughs, building a more connected city one platform at a time. We treat data as a bridge, not a barrier – and the Newsstand is the open gate.
“Data Vandals Newsstand” (detail), 51st & Lex. Downtown 6 train platform, 2026.
PREVIOUS PROJECTS
- “Hello from the Data Vandals” at Cooper Union (2024) was a micro-museum of 400 years of East Village history featuring a 28-foot neighborhood history wall, 2,000+ visitors over three days, free lectures, a history comedy show, and a workshop with NYC Open Data.
- “The Great London Survey” (2025) was a mobile data wagon that crisscrossed London for London Data Week, collecting quality-of-life responses from 500+ people in two days, supported by Flourish/Canva and the Greater London Authority.
- “LA on the Move” (2025–2026) is a year-long exhibition at Los Angeles Union Station, created in collaboration with Metro Art, ArtCenter College of Design, and Arroyos & Foothills Conservancy, using a 3D map, nature sounds, and playful graphics to connect Angelenos with their local ecosystem as they move through the transit system.
The Data Vandals mobile data kiosk, part of “The Great London Survey” (2025). Photo credit: Jamie & the Jams.
“LA on the Move” (2025-2026), exhibition view at Union Station, Waiting Room Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
We’ve also led workshops at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, Centraal Museum Utrecht, ArtCenter College of Design, NOAHCON (National Organization for Arts in Health), and NYC Open Data Week. Each project has sharpened our sense of what works when you put data in the hands of the public: simplicity, humor, tactility, and a genuine invitation to participate.
Come Find Us
The Data Vandals Newsstand is at 51st and Lexington. Come say hello, pick up a free newspaper and answer a survey. The train is coming. You’ve got a minute. Use it to tell the city what you want it to know.
Data Vandals is the collaboration of artist Jen Ray and data visualization designer Jason Forrest. Follow our work at datavandals.com.
More images:
Data Vandals “LA on the Move”, Union Station, Waiting Room Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, September 2025 – October 2026.
Data Vandals “LA on the Move”, Union Station, Waiting Room Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, September 2025 – October 2026.
Data Vandals “The Great London Survey”, London Data Week, July 2025.
Data Vandals “The Great London Survey”, London Data Week, July 2025.
Data Vandals “Hello From The Data Vandals(or free as air and water, or whatsoever things are true)”, CIVIC PROJECTS LAB at THE COOPER UNION, Sept 2024.
Data Vandals “Hello From The Data Vandals(or free as air and water, or whatsoever things are true)”, CIVIC PROJECTS LAB at THE COOPER UNION, Sept 2024.