steel, resin and fiberglass composite, epoxy paint, polyurethane
Coming April 2025
Big Hoops to Fill is a large-scale sculpture designed by Boston-based artist, sculptor, and jewelry maker Ja’Hari Ortega (she/her). The artwork features two outsized golden bamboo hoop earrings –also known as “door knocker earrings” – that function as interactive swings. Cast from fiberglass with steel interior supports, the earrings hang from a swing set frame that echoes the one the artist grew up playing on in Roxbury, MA.
Ortega’s sculpture draws upon the cultural weight of bamboo hoop earrings, an iconic style of jewelry worn by many women of color that originated from early hip-hop culture and fashion, worn by performers such as Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte, Roxanne Shanté, and Queen Latifah, and featured in song lyrics by LL Cool J. As journalist Ivette Feliciano observes, these earrings “symbolize resistance and bear cultural significance [especially for] immigrant communities rooted in Indigenous and African traditions.”
By rendering bamboo hoop earrings at monumental scale in the center of downtown Boston, the artist not only centers the everyday lives of women of color in public space, but also invites them to the artwork to play, rest, and relax. Such moments can be challenging to access for Black and Brown women, who are oftentimes discouraged or excluded –both structurally and specifically– from engaging in playful experiences. As the artist herself shares, Big Hoops to Fill creates opportunities to “heal one’s inner child, cultivate and encourage healthy multigenerational relationships, and foster confidence in one’s identity and culture.”
Through amplifying jewelry that forms a part of daily life for many women of color, the artwork recognizes and amplifies the “textures, surfaces, patterns and objects that make up the weft and weave of everyday life” in Black communities, says scholar and curator Tina M. Campt (2021: 34). An affirming beacon of play, rest, and joy, Big Hoops to Fill inspires us to think both broadly and critically about which objects and whose histories form the basis of monuments in Boston’s public spaces.
Works Cited:
2021. Tina M. Campt. A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
2017. Stephanie Kramer. “The Door-Knocker Earring.” Chapter in Items: Is Fashion Modern? Exhibition publication for MoMA: New York, NY.
Location:
Previous Work
Pictured previous works: “B.I.G. Hoops”, “Protección”, “Me, My Mama, Her Mama and Her Mama’s”, and “JUST SO YOU KNOW”.
Photo Credit: Mel Taing
About the Artist
Ja’Hari Ortega (she/her) is a multidisciplinary Boston-based artist, educator, and advocate who uses a vernacular language to capture the pulse of her city. Primarily drawn to metal sculpture, jewelry-making, and performance, Ortega attended Boston’s only public high school for the visual and performing arts, Boston Arts Academy, as well as the nation’s first and only public independent college of art and design, Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In 2024, Ortega developed her practice through hands-on art education at Boston Arts Academy, Massachusetts College of Art and Design where she received her BFA, and North Bennet Street School in 2024 where she earned her diploma in jewelry-making and repair.
Ortega finds joy in using her artistic practice to engage and support her community: as one example, she was a panelist for Radical Imagination for Racial Justice, an initiative which invites Boston-based artists and creatives of color to imagine and co-create justice with their communities. Ortega has held artist residencies at Surf Point in Maine (2023), the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida (2023), and Monson Arts in Maine (2024). She currently works as a Teaching Artist in Residency at the Boston Arts Academy and in the studio with artist Stephen Hamilton.
A Special Thank You to Our Supporters
Public Art on The Greenway is made possible with major support from the Mass Cultural Council, the Barr Foundation, Goulston & Storrs, the Greenway Business Improvement District, the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation, Meet Boston, the Wagner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Richard K. Lubin Family Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.
Special thanks to our collaborators BRM Production Management.
About The Greenway and the Conservancy
The Greenway is a contemporary public park in the heart of Boston. We welcome millions of visitors annually to gather, play, unwind, and explore. The Greenway Conservancy is the non-profit responsible for the management and care of The Greenway. The majority of the public park’s annual budget is generously provided by private sources.
The Greenway Conservancy Public Art Program brings innovative and contemporary art to Boston through free exhibitions that engage people in meaningful experiences and dialogue with art, each other, and the most pressing issues of our time. Past Greenway exhibitions can be viewed on the Public Art Instagram (@greenwaypublicart) or The Greenway website (https://www.
