Experience "Play" at Union Station

Artworks by Pelle Cass transform athletic fields and courts into exuberant stages of stop-motion accumulations. Exploring the concept of play, Cass composes densely populated images where entire games unfold at once. In these nearly human-scaled photographs, players multiply, balls arc in constellations, and bodies torque in looping rhythms.

Installed across 36 illuminated lightboxes in the new Metro Art Passageway Gallery at Union Station, Play transforms a highly active public walkway into a vibrant study of movement, rhythm and collective energy. Located within one of Los Angeles’ busiest transportation hubs — where Metro riders, regional commuters, Amtrak passengers and international visitors converge daily — the exhibition reflects the constant flow of people passing through the station.

Created just as Los Angeles prepares to welcome the world for major sporting events, Play arrives at a moment when Union Station will serve as both gateway and gathering space for visitors traveling across the region and beyond. By refusing to isolate winners or losers, Cass allows the act of play to prevail over competition, celebrating the universal impulse to run, leap and gather.

Built from thousands of photographs captured over hours of gameplay, the works collapse fleeting moments into layered visual choreographies where movement becomes pattern and individual actions become part of a larger whole. Like the travelers moving through Union Station each day, the athletes in Cass’s images become part of an ever-shifting collective experience.

Play invites viewers to look beyond the scoreboard and consider the joy, chaos and connection found in motion itself.