Artist Abigail DeVille’s “Light of Freedom” at Madison Square Park is meant to reflect the “despair and the exultation of a turbulent period of pandemic and protest.” In the piece, DeVille has filled a torch (a reference to the Statue of Liberty’s torch which was on view in Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882) with a bell (to summon freedom) and mannequin arms (as if to beseech viewers.) The scaffold surrounding the torch prevents access physically and metaphorically but its golden color summons “the glory of labor and the luminosity in the struggle that can lead to change.” DeVille describes creating the piece: “In my research, I have found that the first Blacks to be brought to New York City were eleven Angolans in 1626. That makes people of African descent the second-oldest group of settlers in New Amsterdam, after the Dutch. Unfortunately, history has erased the contributions and victories of this group. I want to make something that could honor their lives and question what it means to be a New Yorker, past, present, and future.”