This series celebrates the work of some of the most prolific public artists making work today — creators who are reshaping how we experience the spaces we share. From monumental installations to intimate interventions, these stories explore the ideas, processes, and visions behind art that belongs to everyone. This series is proudly sponsored by SNA Displays.
Jen Lewin is an American installation artist who is known around the world for her public, interactive light landscapes. As visitors run, walk, dance, jump and play across her installations, they are able to generate an infinite amount of changes to the works’ colors and reflections. Inspired by light and reflection that occurs in nature, Lewin’s installations—though often temporary—are always site specific and designed to interact within their natural environment. Lewin has shown that art has the transformative capability to bring together communities and make the world feel a little more connected. Lewin has a BA in Architecture and Computer-Aided Design from the University of Colorado Boulder and an MPS in Interactive Design from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and currently lives and works in New York, NY.
A series of interactive pathways that swirl with light when you walk over them.
AQUEOUS is a sequence of interactive LED platforms that form trails of light. During the day, the sculpture shifts in color and reflection, mirroring the sky. At night, AQUEOUS glows in full illuminated interactivity, engaging groups in an ever-changing landscape. Inspired by the symmetry in natural systems, AQUEOUS is one of the first pattern-based sculptures built at this scale. Composed of hundreds of interactive modular platforms derived from the Golden Ratio, the sculpture can be installed in multiple configurations. Each platform is controlled by code written by the artist, allowing them to sense human interaction individually, but also to link to each other to form interconnected pathways of light effects.
The Ursas is a two-part sculptural installation composed of a 13-foot-tall infinity-mirrored form and a 26-foot-tall inhabitable structure made from reclaimed ocean plastic.
Inspired by celestial navigation, the work pairs reflection and immersion to address environmental fragility and loss. One sculpture functions as a symbolic compass, while the other contains an immersive interior documenting species loss as it was understood in 2023. Together, they invite viewers to reflect on orientation, responsibility, and Absence.
HELIX is an interactive light and sound sculpture composed of twenty-four illuminated spires arranged in a spiral based on the golden ratio.
Activated by movement, the installation responds with shifting, flame-like waves of rainbow light and sound, creating an immersive, responsive environment. Drawing on patterns found in nature and mathematics, it highlights the connection between human perception, beauty, and natural order.