5 Innovative Examples of Public Art

Art captures the wonder and diversity of human life, but gallery admission fees, geographic barriers, and cultural gatekeeping often limit who can experience it. Public art provides an important way to bridge these gaps. In recent years, ambitious projects in cities around the world have demonstrated how public sculptures and installations can be innovative and socially meaningful, transforming urban spaces into spaces for reflection and dialogue.

1. Nekisha Dalet Don’t forget (me) (Bryn Mawr, USA, 2025)

In the Bryn Mawr College Cloisters, public art pieces quietly reshape the ground beneath visitors’ feet. Don’t forget (me) Transforming the courtyard into a braided network of over 9,000 hand-woven pavers that wrap around a central fountain in the form of a knot. Embedded within this pattern are approximately 250 stones inscribed with the names of black maids, porters, and domestic workers employed by the university between 1900 and 1940. Interspersed between them are illuminated glass pavers that show the many people who worked to maintain the university but whose names were never recorded.

2. Antony Gormleyclose (Uzbekistan, Bukhara, 2025)

For the Bukhara Biennale ‘Recipes for Broken Hearts’, Antony Gormley collaborated with Uzbek artist Timur Jumayev and local bricklayers to create ‘Close’. Using traditional techniques and 95 tons of unfired, sun-dried earth and straw, they fashioned around 100 “pixelated” bodies arranged in a maze of meditating and squatting figures. As a result, visitors are incredibly encouraged Actively explore the installations, connect with their roots, and consider themes of belonging and coexistence.

3. Just imagine. About living culture (New York City, USA, 2025)

Nepali artist IMAGINE (Sneha Shrestha) combines Sanskrit scriptures with the aesthetics of graffiti to create a wide range of sculptures, paintings, and murals. In her public sculptures, About living cultureinstalled in Jackson Heights’ Diversity Plaza, she created a six-foot golden arch composed of repeating cut-steel renderings of “Ka,” the first letter of the Nepali alphabet. Utilizing arched thresholds commonly found in Nepali vernacular architecture, the piece serves as a “homage to the living traditions of the Himalayan diaspora.”

4. Laura Lima unclear shape (Boston, USA, 2025)

Brazilian artist Laura Lima brought her ecological practice to Massachusetts Audubon’s Boston Nature Center in 2025. unclear shape. Lima worked with local volunteers, naturalists, and scientists to create a series of sculptural interventions designed to serve the animals themselves, providing shelter and enrichment for birds, butterflies, and other wildlife. The installation spotlights non-human inhabitants and invites visitors to reconsider their relationship with the natural world.

5. Ai Weiwei, Roots: Palace (London, UK)

Ai Weiwei Roots: Palace In the 14th edition of the city it was installed at St. Botolph’s without the bishop’s gate for the sculpture. Cast in iron from a root mold of the endangered Pequi vinageiro tree from Brazil, the sculpture uses the traditional “lost wax” method to transform thousands of years old organic matter into a weathered form. Working with Brazilian artisans, Ai Weiwei explores themes of displacement, both his own exile and the broader crisis of refugee and indigenous communities facing forced displacement from their land.