Designs for Harriet Tubman statue to be presented next week

harriet tubman
Wesley Wofford’s temporary installation was on display at City Hall in 2022. The city is now commissioning a permanent statue celebrating the life of Harriet Tubman.
METRO FILE PHOTO

Potential designs for the planned Harriet Tubman statue outside City Hall will be unveiled next week, and residents will have an opportunity to vote for their favorite submissions.

Five sculptors, selected as semi-finalists earlier this year through an advisory committee, will be presenting their visions Thursday, Aug. 3, at a 5:30 p.m. virtual meeting. The artists will display renderings or models and discuss the reasoning behind their proposal, Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration said.

Following the presentation, the plans will be posted online, allowing the public to rank the designs and leave comments, city officials said.

It’s the next step in a saga that began nearly a year-and-a-half ago, when Kenney’s office decided to award a no-bid contract to a white sculptor and later restarted the process under public pressure.

Tubman’s monument – the first on municipal property depicting a Black woman – will be installed on the northeast side of City Hall.

After the city issued an open call for artists, the African American Historic Statue Advisory Committee, which includes two of Tubman’s descendants, in March chose Vinnie Bagwell, Richard Blake, Tanda Francis, Alvin Pettit and Basil Watson as semi-finalists.

They had seven weeks to submit a design, and three more weeks to tweak their proposals, according to the Kenney administration.

An online survey featuring the five designs will be launched at creativephl.org sometime after 8 p.m. next Thursday and remain open through Sept. 1. The advisory committee will review the results and factor them into a final decision, officials said.

The finalist will be chosen in October, and the statue is expected to be crafted and installed next summer and into early 2025, according to a timeline posted on the website of the city’s Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy.

Wesley Wofford, a North Carolina-based artist, was initially commissioned in March 2022 to create the monument. His traveling Tubman sculpture was displayed at City Hall for three months last year.

But the Kenney administration reversed the decision last August after community pushback, particularly from the Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee, who called on the city to institute an open and transparent process and consider local sculptors and artists of color.

To register for the Aug. 3 virtual presentation, go to creativephl.org and select Philadelphia’s Permanent Harriet Tubman Statue under the Community Engagement tab.