INVITING LIGHT - HARMONY PARK
Join the celebration for the opening of Harmony Park, the fifth and final installation for
Inviting Light by artist Ekene Ijoema
Friday, April 16 at 7pm, 1707 Barclay St
Inviting Light will celebrate the unveiling of the installation with music, movement, and poetry and remarks from the artist and Derrick Adams, curator of the Inviting Light site installations.
Harmony Park by renowned artist Ekene Ijeoma reimagines an underutilized urban space through light, art, and community connection – creating a welcoming gathering place in the residentail neighborhood of Greenmount West located in the Station North Arts District. Our evening celebration on April 17 will reveal the innovative installation, marking the culmination of the five-installation Inviting Light series.
Harmony Park is a site-responsive landwork—and the artist's largest work to date—that transforms two vacant lots in Baltimore into a public sculpture park and garden. Sampling the checkered pattern—a symbol of unity found in the Maryland flag and Kente fabrics—the park serves as a stage for interspecies play, inviting neighbors and pollinators to find harmony through touch and sight. This work comments on the dual crises of social division and environmental degradation, suggesting that communal reconciliation and ecological restoration are intrinsically linked and should be addressed simultaneously.
The park features a contemplative landscape of varied stones and two interactive installations designed to channel energy between people:
Energy Poles: Checkers: This interactive light installation invites participants to use touch to connect 11 light poles. By linking bodies—which consist of roughly 60% water—participants act as electrical conductors to power the lights. The pole lights are arranged to form the silhouette of a roof when viewed from the side, suggesting the metaphor of this country as a home that takes all of us to build.
Sight Lines: Checkers: Located at the back of the park, this installation invites participants to use sight to connect across 11 stone stools.
The ground is covered with a checkered pattern of various types of rocks, such as River Rock and Pea Gravel. Through a call-and-response between these installations, neighbors and pollinators, a collective composition takes form, building a public stage for the community’s rhythmic efforts toward harmony.
About the Artist
Ekene Ijeoma is a Nigerian-American conceptual artist who researches social, political, and environmental systems to poetically expose inequities and mutually empower communities. His multidisciplinary practice spans community-based landworks, interactive light installations, and data-driven performances that expand upon Black-American and African experiences, symbols and practices through design and technology. In recent years, environmental justice and ecological restoration have emerged as recurring themes in his work. In 2022, Ijeoma founded Black Forest, an initiative to plant over 40,000 trees for Black lives and archive Black nature across the U.S. and the diaspora. His work has been presented by institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Kennedy Center, Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art.
About Inviting Light Baltimore
Inviting Light Baltimore is a public art initiative supported by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge that explores how light can transform urban spaces and strengthen community connections after dark. Through a series of artist-designed installations across the Station North Arts District, the project reimagines how lighting can promote safety, belonging, and joy. Since its February 2025 launch, Inviting Light has unveiled four other art installations:
Tony Shore’s Aurora
Zoë Charlton’s Third Watch
Phaan Howng’s Big Ass Snake (Plant)s On a Plane
Wickerham & Lomax’s Soft Gym
Inviting Light is facilitated by Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP) in partnership with the Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) and the Mayor’s Office. The project is made possible through funding and grants from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the National Endowment for the Arts, Baltimore Community Foundation, BGE, and the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. Together, the partners aim to activate public spaces, support artists, and strengthen neighborhoods through meaningful cultural investment.