Bar None honors the Parkway’s radical legacy as a site of collective assembly—not by commemorating a singular event or individual, but by offering a monument to collective action, to the overlapping movements and collective voices that have surged through this civic spine in pursuit of justice, celebration and change. 

The sculpture is a winding procession of altered barricades that rise and sink into the earth—like a fault line, a cresting wave, or a path being unearthed—reinforcing the idea of history as something unearthed, partially visible, and still in motion. This accessible and integrated form emphasizes continuity over monumentality, forming a path-like structure that invites viewers to walk alongside it; to participate in the procession through shared memory. 

The piece is constructed from prefabricated steel barricades, interspersed with etched, UV-resistant acrylic panels. These etched surfaces depict pivotal Parkway demonstrations—including the George Floyd Protests, the 1967 Philly School Walkout, the Million Woman March, and Occupy Philadelphia. These are not static representations but visual cues that activate memory as the viewer moves through space. 

Colored acrylic is used selectively, drawing from protest iconography: deep red for urgency, gold for hope, violet for queer and feminist resistance. When illuminated by sunlight, the panels project colored shadows onto the grass and people passing through—casting memory into the present and embedding it in the landscape: a shifting spectrum of resistance and remembrance that evolves throughout the day. 

The work is intentionally attuned to the contradictory presence of barricades on the Parkway. Often deployed as instruments of crowd control during protests—visually and physically reinforcing state power—they are also ubiquitous during civic celebrations: marathons, parades, and festivals. In both contexts, they shape how people move through public space. Their neutrality is a myth; their deployment reflects decisions about who gets to gather, how, and when. By embedding these forms horizontally, partially submerged, and transforming their surfaces into carriers of memory, the sculpture subverts their usual function of containment. No longer barriers, they become conduits for reflection—holding space for grief, urgency, solidarity, and joy. They hold this history for us, rather than bar it from us. 

The work foregrounds how joy and resistance often share the same ground, asking: What makes a gathering celebratory? What marks one assembly as disruptive and another as civic pride? Etched panels depict both confrontation and unity, grief and pride, reinforcing this complexity and insisting that dissent and celebration are not opposites, but points along the same continuum of civic life.   

Rather than a fixed monument, Bar None is a dynamic site of reflection—where the lines between protest and celebration blur and where the act of gathering itself is honored. In doing so, it reaffirms the Parkway as a vital stage for collective care, memory, and civic imagination.  

The artwork was the selected proposal for Art on the Parkway 2025, a juried open call commission organized by the Association for Public Art (aPA), in partnership with the Parkway Council and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation (PPR). Support for the project was provided, in part, by AIR Communities/Park Towne Place and Prudent Management Associates.