Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd, This is the Body of the Sun

Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd have a public sculpture on view at Arts Landing, 803 Penn Ave, in the Cultural District. It's called This Is the Body of the Sun, and it's the first monumental public work from the two of them together, working as Rainbow Serpent.

The piece is an eight-foot cast aluminum figure adorned in 23.5-karat gold leaf, and it reimagines the Ancient Egyptian sun deity Ra as a symbol of leadership, sovereignty, and inner heroism. A hieroglyphic hymn to Ra from the Book of the Dead runs across the figure's collar, sculpted over twelve lines. It's a big, bright presence right in the middle of the city, and it's free to see.

There's a whole history behind it. The sculpture grew out of the artists' Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers project, a series of sixteen life-size glass busts of Black queer people cast as reimagined Egyptian deities. Since then, the idea has expanded into a VR film, a live performance drawing on the Opening of the Mouth ritual, and a feature film with members of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Redd places the work at the intersection of ancient Egyptian artmaking, the African American tradition of claiming that past, and a lineage of Black queer artists who have used Egyptian myth as a source of liberation.

It was unveiled on April 17, 2026, and will be on view for 18 months, so you've got plenty of time to catch it. It's at Arts Landing, 803 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, and there's no admission fee.