Artwork Details
- Title
- Let Freedom Ring
- Artist
- Paul Ramírez Jonas (b. 1965)
- Year
- 2023, on view in Philadelphia June 4 – November 1, 2026
- Medium
- Steel, bronze, 32 automated bells, one participant-activated bell
Artwork Description
HOURS: Participate Fridays-Sundays from 2-8 PM through November 1, 2026.
Let Freedom Ring features an interactive bell tower that plays the song “America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee)” in its entirety except for the final note. Passersby are invited to complete the unfinished song by playing the final note on a 600 pound look-a-like Liberty Bell, prompting them to reflect on for what and for whom they ring this bell of freedom.
Throughout its long life, the Liberty Bell has been adopted as a symbol for social justice movements, from abolition to women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement. Artist Paul Ramírez Jonas’ Let Freedom Ring is not a simple replica or representation of the bell, but a powerful reimagination and reactivation of our nation’s founding ideals. Ramírez Jonas offers a vision of a future where the bell of freedom rings for everyone, not just a select few – and his work of public art offers a physical platform on which to make this metaphor a reality.
“My interest in bells directed me to think deeply about the role of sound, song, and music more broadly in monumental landscapes – hence the title of Let Freedom Ring, which is one of the refrains from “America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee)” a song that up until the 1930s served as one of our National Anthems. The song also had a deep significance during the Civil Rights movement –most memorably when Martin Luther King Jr. referenced the lyrics in his August 28, 1963 speech on the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I wanted to make a monument that speaks to our history and encourages us to shape our own future, in the same way that we are able to shape our own songs. I am interested in how our national symbols are not static, but rather capable of transformation–just as our country was always meant to be.” – PRJ
The artwork is a dynamic symbol inviting civic dialogue around the founding of American Democracy and free speech.
About the Artist
Paul Ramírez Jonas was born in Pomona, California in 1965 and raised in Honduras. He was educated at Brown University (BA, 1987) and Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, 1989). Over the past 30 years Paul Ramírez Jonas has sought to challenge the definitions of art and the public and to engineer active audience participation and exchange. His work has been made public in galleries, institutions, and urban spaces around the world. He is Art Department Chair at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University.
Artwork Credits
Let Freedom Ring was originally commissioned by Monument Lab for its Beyond Granite exhibition on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in 2023.
Support for Let Freedom Ring is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and the Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial.
Artwork Media
Museum Without Walls
Voices:
PAUL RAMÍREZ JONAS is the artist who created Let Freedom Ring.
PAUL FARBER is the co-founder and director of Monument Lab.
Produced by Alex Lewis/Rowhome Productions.