Cherry Street Pier | 121 N Christopher Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia
On view June 4-September 27, 2026
Opening Thursday, June 4 | 6-8:30PM
For press inquiries, please reach out to the team at ALMA.
The Association for Public Art (aPA) is proud to announce Let Freedom Ring, a monumental sculpture by artist Paul Ramírez Jonas that will be installed at the Cherry Street Pier, an arts and culture hub on the Delaware River, just a short distance from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia’s Old City. Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the interactive sculpture is a powerful reimagination and reactivation of the nation’s founding ideals, inviting viewers to consider what freedom means to them and thus what it might still mean for the rest of the country.
Let Freedom Ring incorporates the song ‘America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee)’—which until 1931 often served as the country’s national anthem—as both material and subject. After 1931, the song was most notably performed in protest by Marian Anderson on Easter Sunday in 1939 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and then extensively quoted and reworded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the end of his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963. The song’s original meaning and national significance were transformed by way of its inclusion in these momentous historical events that advocated for equality and freedom from persecution on the basis of one’s skin color. With Let Freedom Ring Ramírez Jonas invokes the complicated and still-evolving history of ‘America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee)’ by constructing a sculpture that asks the public not only to complete the song itself, but to also invest their own ideas and sentiments.
The bell tower sculpture features a central carillon with bells arranged on a spiral around a vertical pillar. As the song begins to be played, the first note of the melody rings out from the highest point and the last note sounding out from the ground. As each bell is mechanically struck in succession, the melody descends downward towards the public. When it reaches the 33rd bell and final note of the melody, the bell remains silent. This last bell, cast in bronze and larger than the others at 600lbs, is placed at ground level and only rings if it is struck manually. Thus the song remains incomplete without participation. Each person must pull a lever to ring the last note and complete the song, creating a poignant metaphor and participatory model for how individuals can work together to fulfill the unfinished promises of the nation’s founding.
Inscribed on the final bell are two unfinished phrases: ‘I want to be free to’ and ‘I want to be free from’ followed by blank lines where individuals can complete the phrases and create their own idea of what freedom is or should be. Each person can create a unique graphite rubbing taken from the surface of the bell, resulting in a token of their participation and an expression of their beliefs. The choice between positive and negative freedoms—between the ability to do something or to be free from something else—constitutes one of this country’s fundamental civic debates, one that Ramírez Jonas has activated in a new way.
Let Freedom Ring was originally commissioned by Monument Lab for its Beyond Granite exhibition on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in 2023. The Association for Public Art is pleased to be partnering with the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation to host the work at Cherry Street Pier and is organizing additional community partnerships with PA Youth Vote, the National Constitution Center, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Play on Philly and the Marian Anderson Historical Society. These groups will bring engaging public programs and events that offer people multiple entry points to the work and the themes it explores.
Support for Let Freedom Ring is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and the Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial.
