What’s that cascade of bright barricades at Maja Park for?

An 80-foot-long procession of steel barricades now stretches across Maja Park. The new public artwork, titled Bar None, is a cascade of colorful etched acrylic panels filled with images of impassioned Philadelphians marching across the Ben Franklin Parkway as part of various protests and marches.

The artist, Nicolo Gentile, wanted to honor and reflect upon Philly’s history of protest and political uprising.

“By engaging images of political and civic activity in the Parkway’s history, it’s an opportunity for me not necessarily to pose ‘What’s next?’ but to reinvigorate the political potential of that communion at this site.”

Gentile, an award-winning artist and associate adjunct professor at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, sourced the images with the help of archivists from the Temple Special Collections Research Center, the Free Library, Penn’s University Records & Archives Center, and others.

Going as far back as 1899 and as recent as 2023, he assembled printed material and digitally-scanned images of civil rights marches, protests, and peaceful assemblies that happened at the Parkway.

Gentile scanned the images, adjusted them for sharpness and contrast, and then enlarged them until he had highly pixelated images. These were then carved by Baltimore-based artist Joshua Frick into 72 sheets of acrylic, resulting in the renderings that now flank the Parkway.

The images include snapshots from the George Floyd protests in 2020, past Pride parades, rallies during the AIDS crisis, and other cultural celebrations at the heart of the neighborhood.

“It’s a huge span of the Parkway’s history, and to find a focus with so much breadth was a bit of a challenge,” Gentile said. “But it was definitely a new method for me to engage.”

With Bar None, Gentile, who has exhibited in Philly and other international art spaces, incorporated elements of his past archival works, which largely revolve around the intersection of gender and identity.

He was selected by the Association for Public Art for the second annual “Art on the Parkway.” Rachel Hsu’s The Weight of Our Living was the first.

In partnership with the Parkway Council and Philadelphia Parks and Rec, Bar None will be on display through October as part of the temporary public art initiative.

Gentile wants the winding barricade to be a “site of reflection.”

To illuminate the urgency of protest, Gentile added distinct colors to the panels.

Deep reds represent uprisings against violence and injustice. Gold panels symbolize resilience, optimism, and the legacy of cultural pride. And purple panels are used for images of Pride parades and trans rights marches.

The steel barricades rise and fall across Maja Park’s grounds, just as liberation movements glide across the past and present.

The barricades ”speak to conflict, but it’s also contradictory,” Gentile said. “What does it hold? What does it keep us from? Bar None ... is asking, ‘How do you feel being a part of something that you were not a part of?’ Yet, you live in the ripples of that time.”

In the past year, Philadelphia’s Maja Park has become the grounds for other social and political messaging.

Last year, a statue of President Donald Trump appeared behind the Maja statue at 22nd Street and the Parkway. The bottom of the statue featured a plaque titled, “In honor of a lifetime of sexual assault,” along with an excerpt from Trump’s infamous conversation with then-Access Hollywood host Billy Bush in 2005.

Less than a year later, Gentile’s work stretches across the park’s green space.

Association for Public Art spokesperson Julia Perciasepe is confident Gentile’s work will attract visitors to the Parkway site and encourage them to think more deeply about future community engagement.

“It’s near one of the assembly points on the Parkway where protests, parades, or celebrations start or end,” she said. “So, we thought it was really fitting. There’s a lot of initiative right now to bring awareness to the Parkway as a site for gathering. Maja Park is one of those spots that’s a little overlooked.”

Gentile wants the artwork to pull viewers and make them think about what community assembly could look like today.

“I guess when you’re confronted by 100-plus years of collective assembly, and you’re standing there solely as an individual, it may give you an opportunity to think about your engagement,” he said. “Think about how you not only engage your site, but your community and your involvement in that community.”