In an effort to bring attention to society’s “addiction” to mobile phones, a group of local artist organized a performance art display inside Istanbul’s metrobus public transportation network.

Artists from Çığlık Art Workshop’s amateur theater covered themselves from head to toe with special paint and stood still as statues while holding various books inside metrobuses and on station platforms.

The young performers from the workshop, which is based out of Istanbul’s Avcılar district, aimed to encourage those traveling on public transport to spend the journey reading a book.

Head of Çığlık Art Workshop, Cemal Uçarman, said societies that did not show interest in reading would stay “blind,” and become unable to grow and develop.

One young girl on the metrobus who witnessed the artists stated that despite the fact that she loves reading, she did not read on Istanbul’s public transportation because of busy rush-hour crowds and noise.

Opened in 2007, Istanbul’s Metrobus carries some 700,000 passengers daily along its route across the European and Asian sides of the city

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