Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Association for Public Art (aPA) will present Let Freedom Ring by artist Paul Ramírez Jonas at 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.
Conceived as an enormous bell tower, the work is a powerful reimagination and reactivation of our nation’s founding ideals. It will play the patriotic song “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” in its entirety — all but the final note. Participants must pull a lever to ring the last note on a 600-pound bell at the base of the sculpture to complete the song, a poignant metaphor and model for how we can work together as a society to fulfill the unfinished promises of our nation’s founding.
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, together with PA Youth Vote, the National Constitution Center, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and Play On Philly, to present a series of related public programs and events in 2026. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements.
Paul Ramírez Jonas was born in Pomona, California in 1965 and raised in Honduras. 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. He has been made public in galleries, institutions and urban spaces around the world. He is the Art Department Chair at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell.
Support for Let Freedom Ring is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and the Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial.
