Hoi Polloi is a public art installation created by Lindsey Stouffer at the Forsyth MetroLink Station. Perforated, stainless steel screens appear to shimmer as people walk by.

Hoi Polloi

Lindsey Stouffer | 2006

Forsyth MetroLink Station
Perforated stainless steel
South screen: 20′ h. x 16′ 4″ w. x 3′ 2″ d.
North screens: 19′ 10″ h. x 24′ 5″ w. x 10′ 7″ d.

Looking down into the Forsyth MetroLink station, the viewer takes in an amphitheater-like space.  Passengers descend along curved pedestrian ramps that pass through spaces formed by large, concave, metal screens located on both sides of the station, creating a visual link across the platform.

The screens provide some protection from the elements and when viewed from a distance, the screens’ perforations create an optical illusion known as the moiré effect, and appear to shimmer as people walk by.  At night, interior lights allow the screens to glow from within, diffusing light like enormous lanterns.

Hoi Polloi is intended to feel intimate and monolithic, durable and penetrable, relevant and timeless, specific and general. Hoi Polloi explores these opposing ideas while presenting an atmospheric shift that affects passengers as they enter the station area or pass through it on a light rail vehicle at different times of the day or night.

Commissioned by Arts in Transit for Metro Transit St. Louis.

Photograph © A. Zahner Co.