STN global correspondent Anson Stewart shows us how the buses of Panama City have become a rolling canvases.
The buses in Panama City are covered with captivating spray-painted and vinyl adhesive images, cartoons and photos ranging from mystic wizards to Shakira, lions to Tupac, and Darth Vader to Pinky and the Brain. This article from 2008 details the buses and the concerns about losing valuable public art as they are replaced and helped convinced me to make Panama one of my stops. Though it mentions a renowned artist from El Chorillo, the drivers I talked to also spoke highly of a number of bus artists in the Santa Librada neighborhood. To my eye, the Santa Librada buses were the most well-decorated.
STN's Stewart is a graduate of Swarthmore College and a recipient of a 2010 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a grant to study abroad. Stewart's project is "School Bus Migrations: Recycling Transit in the Global South." Follow his blog and see more photos from his journey.