'Amulet' by Rhea Vedro
We commissioned artist Rhea Vedro to create a short-term artwork for the north entrance to Boston City Hall.
Project Details
About the Artwork
Amulet
steel, community wishmarks, cement, paint
15’ x 15’ x 19’
2025
Rhea Vedro
This project explores the intersection of materiality and community. Vedro invited Boston community members to create “wishmarks”, hammering into steel panels while focusing on a wish. Hundreds of wishmarks are welded into this sculpture and appear as subtle surface textures. Installed outside the 2nd floor entrance to Boston’s City Hall, Amulet is intended as a family of guardian birds protecting the moving energy of the city, offering us safe passage through a shared landscape.
Credits
- City of Boston and the Boston Art Commission
- With support from the Boston Public Art Triennial's Public Art Accelerator
- The generous people of Boston who contributed wishmarks, especially in partnership with Veronica Robles Cultural Center, Zumix, Artisan’s Asylum, and ATI: At the Heart of Healing
- BRM Production Management, Bianca Mauro - Project Management
- Graham Yeager - Lead Fabrication Support
- Alachie Yeager, Jacob Schuab - Fabrication Assistance
- Ken Yeager, Sydney Science LLC, Adrian Davidson, Stage Machines LLC - Studio Support
- Payette - Design Visualization
- Troy Wade, TellMe Studios - Documentation
- Aya Yeager, Beverly Gordon, Steven Vedro
Amulet is dedicated in loving memory of Jonathan Bownds and Ibrahim Abdul-Matin
About the Artist
Rhea Vedro is a metalsmith creating at the intersection of materiality and collective healing. Her research explores metalsmithing as a cultural signifier of values, power and protection across belief-systems and time. Trained first as a jeweler, her studio practice is primarily hollow-form steel sculpture. In 2022 Vedro began teaching at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering as a Metals Artist in Residence and Lecturer.
Vedro received a 2021-22 Boston Public Art Accelerator Program Fellowship from the Boston Public Art Triennial (formerly Now + There) and served as Director of Community Engagement for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum from 2016-2021. Her project portfolio includes the City of Boston Mayor's Office of Arts + Culture, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Artisans Asylum, North Bennet Street School, Baltimore Jewelry Center, Vizcaya Museum, Queens Museum, The New York City Parks Foundation, and museums, schools, shelters and creative community spaces throughout the Americas. Vedro holds an MFA in Metalsmithing from SUNY New Paltz.
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