Ekene Ijeoma and Derrick Adams in Conversation

Join us for a conversation about Harmony Park at Blue Light Junction!

Harmony Park artist Ekene Ijeoma and artist and curator of the Inviting Light site installations, Derrick Adams, will share a public conversation about the project moderated by Maura Dwyer, whose led community engagement for Inviting Light as a Project Coordinator for The Neighborhood Design Center. Please RSVP to save a seat!

Harmony Park by renowned artist Ekene Ijeoma transforms an underutilized urban space with light, art, and interaction. The installation includes a series of metal poles that illuminate when touched, inviting residents and visitors alike to gather, reflect, and form new connections within the Greenmount West neighborhood. It's an interspecies ground for play to encourage neighbors and pollinators to find harmony through touch and sight.

Harmony Park Opening Event, Friday, April 17, 6:30-8:30 pm

Ekene Ijeoma is an artist whose work brings together data, aesthetics, and social issues through performance, installation, and public engagement. Since 2015, his work has been presented widely, with recent exhibitions including the Boston Center for the Arts (2024), MIT Museum (A Counting: Boston-Cambridge, 2023), Onassis Foundation (Plásmata, 2022), Exploratorium (Glow, 2021), Van Alen Institute (Public Realm R+D, 2021), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (All Together, Amongst Many, 2021), and the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis (CAM Anywhere, 2021).

Derrick Adams is the artistic director of Inviting Light and curator of the light-based site installations. His artwork spans painting, collage, sculpture, performance, video, sound, and public activation and explores how identity and personal narrative intersect with American iconography, art history, urban culture, and Black experiences. Adams’s work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and shown in public spaces at the National Mall, Rockefeller Center, and Chicago’s Navy Pier. He is the founder of Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a non-profit organization that supports and encourages underserved communities in Baltimore through The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program that subscribes to the concept of leisure as therapy for the Black creative; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative counter-institutional space for collecting and safekeeping the data of local archival initiatives; and Zora’s Den, a community of Black women writers.

Inviting Light Baltimore is a public art initiative supported by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge that explores how light can transform urban spaces and strengthen community connections after dark. Through a series of artist-designed installations across the Station North Arts District, the project reimagines how lighting can promote safety, belonging, and joy. Since its February 2025 launch, Inviting Light has unveiled four other art installations:

• Tony Shore’s
• Zoë Charlton’s
• Phaan Howng’s
• Wickerham & Lomax’s

Inviting Light is facilitated by Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP) in partnership with the Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) and the Mayor’s Office. The project is made possible through funding and grants from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the National Endowment for the Arts, Baltimore Community Foundation, BGE, and the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. Together, the partners aim to activate public spaces, support artists, and strengthen neighborhoods through meaningful cultural investment.

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