The SODO Track is transforming the portal to Downtown Seattle – a two-mile transit corridor lined by industrial building backs – into an imaginative raceway of art in motion.

An open-air urban art gallery, it is the first mural project to commission many artists to explore one theme – motion – and for that theme to reflect the in-motion viewing experience of its viewers: over 50,000 transit riders each weekday.

Regional, national, and international artists are painting side-by-side, creating a series of artworks that stream through bus and train windows as a largely continuous line of sight. Defined mural lifespans and centralized strategies for PR and maintenance further distinguish this mural project.

40 artists have produced 29 murals on 19 properties since 2016. Artists are invited by curator Gage Hamilton and selected from the 4Culture Muralist Roster, a peer panel-selected roster of regional artists who self-submitted for consideration. These artists bring a broad range of backgrounds, styles, and approaches to the theme of motion – from painted animation frames that come to life in transit to patterns that evoke Native American dance movements, from creatures that leap to vanishing points that point to places beyond what we can see. Artists are invited to participate festival-style and to work in new ways: some paint at their largest scale to date, others offer youth workshops or collaborate as teams for the first time.

A story of physical transformation, the SODO Track is also a story about partnership. Produced by 4Culture, the project is coalition-built with multiple agency partners and community supporters. We come together around shared goals – enhance the transit experience, up the ante on street art in Seattle, contribute something new to the global street art conversation – and maximize public investment with economies of scale, grants, private donations, and in-kind contributions from many, including local chefs.