14. Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds at Columbus Park

Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Mind. Courtesy of More Art & Fred Wilson.

Fred Wilson’s first-ever large-scale public sculpture Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds will be on display at Columbus Park in Downtown Brooklyn through June 2023. The sculpture, which measures ten-feet tall is presented by What: More Art and the Downtown Brooklyn + Dumbo Art Fund

Composed of decorative ironwork, fencing, and statues/busts of African figures, Wilson utilizes the sculpture’s decorative bars to symbolize gated communities, insecurity, the incarceration of Black men, the detainment of illegal immigrants, and self-created barriers fringing upon our society’s ability to achieve progress. Strategically positioned next to the Kings County Supreme Court in between statues of Christopher Columbus and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds also plays into current dialogue surrounding the politics of erasure and exclusion in public spaces.