Artwork at the Reston Town Center Metro station is in the running for an international public art award, with local residents eligible to cast ballots in support.
“Ethos” by George Bates is among 100 pieces of public art vying in the CODAawards competition, sponsored by CODAworx.
The awards program is designed to “highlight optimistic ambition, belief in cooperation and true care for community that the growing public-art industry shares with the world,” CODAworx CEO Toni Sikes said.
For the project, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) commissioned Bates to create artwork for the glazing along the escalators at the north and south entrance pavilions of the Metro station.
Bates and Germany-based Peters Glass Malerei worked with WMATA’s Art in Transit team and its architects and engineers to design, develop and install the artwork.
Completed in 2024, the design was inspired by the founder of Reston — Robert E. Simon — and the statement that “You can’t have a Utopia of one.”
As part of developing the design, Bates conducted a series of interviews with community members in an effort to capture a diverse array of voices, stories, ideas and opinions that helped the artist achieve his goal.
Artistic and philosophical styles including Brutalism, Modernism, Wabi-Sabi and Universal Constructivism also helped to inform the design.
In an interview for WMATA last year, Bates said he had not been familiar with Reston before embarking on the commission. He learned it was “an incredibly diverse, incredibly complex” community and attempted to explore the complexities through the artwork.
“I say I don’t ‘make’ anything. My role is to reveal something,” he said.
Bates collaborated with Nicole Tong, Fairfax County’s first poet laureate, to incorporate fragments from her collection “How to Prove a Theory” into the artwork.
“I really feel like we nailed it,” Bates said of the collaboration. “It was really a dream. [Tong] was absolutely fantastic to work with.”
CODAawards celebrate the projects that most successfully integrate commissioned art into interior, architectural or public spaces.
In the current environment, “the CODAawards are more relevant than ever,” Sikes told FFXnow.
Public voting continues through July 11. Participants can vote for as many of the 100 nominees as they like.
Award finalists represent projects completed across the globe. “Ethos” is the only one from the D.C. region and only one from Virginia in the 2025 competition.
