Cai Guo-Qiang: Fireflies Opening Celebration

In conjunction with its public art project Cai Guo-Qiang: Fireflies, the Association for Public Art presents a public opening celebration to unveil the interactive, site-specific work on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The event will feature a one-time-only public performance directed by Chinese contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang, in which he will orchestrate a light and movement presentation with the specially crafted Fireflies pedi-cabs.

This event is free and open to the public.

Fireflies, produced in collaboration with guest curator Lance Fung, features a series of luminous, kinetic sculptures inspired by the traditional lanterns frequently displayed in the artist’s hometown of Quanzhou, China. Guo-Qiang will attach hundreds of glowing handcrafted Chinese lanterns to 27 customized pedicabs—part rickshaw and part kinetic sculpture—that will travel along the Parkway to be experienced in motion by carriage passengers, pedestrians, and motorists. The artist’s largest public art project in the US in a decade, the participatory installation is presented on the occasion of the Parkway’s centennial.