Metro transforms discarded New York City MetroCards into sites of inscription, where personal and cultural memory are reworked through material intervention. Using scratching, carving, and inking, Leonov treats the plastic surface as both support and resistance, producing images that register as etched rather than drawn—marked by pressure, abrasion, and erosion.
Fragments of text, schematic mapping, and references to the Russian metro are embedded within the cards, establishing a dialogue between systems of transit and histories of displacement. The works function as palimpsests, where surfaces are not built but worn into— carrying traces of movement, rupture, and adaptation. Rather than stabilizing memory, the series renders it as layered, provisional, and continually in transit.