Seven Incredible Train Ticket Masterpieces

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Sooner or later the ubiquitous train ticket, that slip of card generated millions of times a day the world over before shortly being discarded in bins, on roadsides or in back pockets, will be rendered obsolete. The digital revolution, perhaps with a little encouragement from the green movement, will ensure that a less disposable commodity is our ticket from A to B. Until that day comes, take heart that at least 450,000 tickets have been saved from a rubbish dump fate.

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Back in 2008, this depiction of Japanese manga hero, Astro Boy, was created using 138,000 recycled Tokyo Metro tickets to mark the opening of the city’s Fukutoshin subway line.

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The 10-foot by 7-foot work of art was created by volunteers from the city’s Takashimaya department store and other Shinjuku-area businesses, who painstakingly overlapped and fixed in place the used black and white, numbered tickets.

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As well as Astro Boy himself, the artwork depicts other characters from the series, which has been popular since the 1950s, alongside the new Fukutoshin train. No doubt, the project was inspired by the train ticket reproductions of classic masterpieces created a year earlier.

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Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” Renoir’s “Dance at the Moulin de la Galette,” Jean-Francois Millet’s “The Gleaners” and Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” are among the great works of art depicted by around 300 employees of the Takashimaya department store in Osaka.

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The creations are formed of 320,000 train tickets, gathered from Nankai Namba, a train line that runs from Namba to Kansai Airport, where the artwork is displayed.

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For three months, the employees gave up their breaks and free time to complete the work. Though their materials were extremely limited, the results are highly effective, pixellated compositions. Copying, as they do, the work of great masters, these recycled art installations are entirely committed to the concept of reuse.