Art on the Parkway Finalists Announced! Share Your Feedback

Art on the Parkway 2026 Finalists

Get to know the finalist proposals for this year’s Art on the Parkway open call and complete this brief survey to share your thoughts. Your input will help shape the future of this program.

Proposal 1: For the Public Good

In 1854, one of the first public drinking fountains in the United States was installed along Forbidden Drive in the Wissahickon Valley. The fountain took water from a spring, serving travelers passing along the road. The lintel and plinth were inscribed with a pair of lofty Latin phrases “Pro Bono Publico” “Esto Perpetua” meaning ‘For the public good” and “Let it be perpetual.” Sadly, the fountain was sealed up in 1957, because the water had become too polluted to drink. It remains in the Wissahickon to this day, though deprived of its original function.

Lewis Colburn’s proposal draws from the story of this fountain, considering it as a cautionary tale in an era of declining trust and investment in public institutions, as well as drastic climate change and environmental degradation. In effect, the fountain’s story becomes both a quiet reminder, and a call to action towards a more whole, collectively-driven approach to our public institutions, as well as toward mitigating the unfolding environmental catastrophe we now live in.

The work is a full-scale replica of the fountain, approximately 9’ tall by 6’ wide, cast in segments in fiberglass-reinforced concrete. The artist plans to leave the back of the fountain open and exposed, in the manner of a theater set or a freestanding building façade. The structure will be supported by a series of aluminum stage trusses, both providing structural support, and emphasizing the constructed, artificial nature of the object.

Proposal 2: Resonant Ground

Resonant Ground introduces an ensemble of life-size megaphones and aeolian flutes to the civic bustle of the Parkway. Nestled into pocket meadows, the trio of megaphones open toward one another, harmonizing with the gentle amplification of the ambient space and offering deep listening, congregation, contemplation, conversation, storytelling, music-making and curiosity. The aeolian flutes likewise resonate in the space and voice the presence of breeze and wind; welcoming nature’s respite amid the busyness of downtown Philadelphia.

The megaphones are constructed of reclaimed and sustainably harvested North American Bald Cypress. The aeolian flutes are constructed of salvaged galvanized downspouts that are anchored in the ground. The pocket meadows will incorporate native perennial plugs and grasses into the existing turf grass, which will be left unmowed through the course of the installation to showcase the possibility of managed landscapes returning to a natural state. Changing our culture from an adversarial relationship with nature to a collaborative one restores beneficial insects to cities via biodiverse forage and shelter that can become thriving, self-sustaining public spaces for all inhabitants.

Proposal 3: Franklin Thread

The growth of flax can be understood as a catalyst in many ways: its fiber can be used to manufacture textiles, as it was in Philadelphia pre-war; its seeds are food, offering digestive, metabolic, and cardiovascular benefits; it can remediate the toxins and pollutants of brownfield sites; it supports pollinators during its growth, attracting bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds; and, as has been demonstrated, it offers a new way of thinking about building in this masonry-centric city.

The proposed installation is a linear thread paralleling Benjamin Franklin Parkway through the center of Maja Park to receive full southern light. Its western end will be a 3’ wide, 250’ long plot of flax, planted in mid-May and harvested and replanted in mid-August. The next 100’ of the thread will be devoted to the “dew retting” of flax, the process by which the plant’s fibers are separated from its woody core. This flax will have been grown and harvested from brownfield sites in North Philadelphia through compensated, community collaboration with the New Kensington Community Development Corporation between April and June. The final 50’ of the thread, culminating at “Maja”, will be a zone occupied by a sculptural wall made from “flaxcrete”— a biogenic building material made up of flax shive in combination with a mineral binder and reinforced with flax fiber.

Proposal 4: Many Philadelphias

Using sound and mosaic sculpture, this artwork will celebrate the origin stories of Philadelphians to highlight the myriad voices that make up Philadelphia through their treasured and forsaken objects. William Penn chose the Greek words phileo (love) and adelphos (brother) to evoke the religious tolerance that he sought for the area. This work, ‘Many Philadelphias’, suggests a renewed vision of tolerance by highlighting the stories of ten Philadelphians, ranging from Iranian immigrants to African American elders through the objects they cherish, remember, or have lost that speak to their unique connection to our home city. The artists are equally inspired by this moment when we as a society are overwhelmed with objects to the point that they are no longer special, void of ritual and ceremony. They find inspiration in the motif of ancient Greco-Roman floor mosaics known as asàrotos òikos, or “unswept room” in Greek. These mosaics typically represented the aftermath of a party – lobster shells, empty nuts, grape vines, and chicken bones, for example. The artists propose creating ten 18” diameter mosaic stepping stones over a span of 300 feet of park area featuring depictions of cherished artifacts of Philadelphians amongst mundane objects that one might experience on a walk in the city. They invite visitors to rediscover their value in the way a child might. Further, each stepping stone will be assigned a unique sound work including excerpts of interviews layered with found-sound recordings and musical accompaniment, activated via QR code on a mobile device. The mosaic pathway and soundwalk highlights three urgent concerns of our present moment: amplifying diverse voices, fostering empathy across difference, and confronting our shared environmental precarity.