Proposed Artwork: “Delivering a Message of Freedom”

Wrapped obelisks honor Christo and the runners who delivered news in ancient Greece. Christo called his 24.5-mile-long “Running Fence” a “scream for freedom.” This quarter-mile-long installation, wrapped in Christo’s style, references the 4×400 relay race instead of the marathon.

A quarter-mile-long row of translucent, lighted obelisks features seven 4-foot-tall obelisks spaced evenly in-line between two 21-foot obelisks with relay baton holders. The quarter-mile distance is equivalent to a 4×100-meter relay, and the baton references scrolls delivered urgently by ancient messengers to group leaders in battle.

The obelisks will light up sequentially towards the direction of an empty relay baton holder (lit red) in one of the 21-foot-tall obelisks. A message baton (marked with “Freedom”) in the green lit obelisk delivered to the empty red-lit obelisk will trigger the following: a display of the relay delivery time, the obelisks will flash a message in Morse code (“Freedom”) and then the sequential direction of the lights will reverse to the direction of the empty obelisk.