Washington Glass Studio is honored to announce that we have been awarded the public art commission for Harriet Tubman Elementary School by the DC Department of General Services in partnership with DC Public Schools. The project will be led by Washington Glass Studio artist and co-director Michael Janis, whose work frequently explores history, memory, and the narratives embedded within public space.
Titled Enduring Dreams of Home, the commissioned artwork is an 11-foot-tall freestanding Corten steel sculpture that reflects on the physical and emotional consequences of mid-century urban renewal policies that reshaped Washington, DC. During the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of Black residents were displaced under the promise of progress as established neighborhoods were fractured by freeway construction and institutional expansion. With these losses came the disruption of cultural continuity and the erasure of generations of lived experience.
The sculpture is designed to resemble two fractured townhouses, laser-cut to evoke the rowhomes that once defined the surrounding community. These split forms reference demolition, displacement, and rupture, while also speaking to survival, adaptation, and redefinition. What appears broken still stands. What was disrupted continues to carry memory. The interplay between architectural structure and open void invites reflection on belonging, history, and the stories held within physical spaces.
At the heart of Enduring Dreams of Home is a cut-out portrait of Harriet Tubman, integrated into the fractured architectural form as an enduring symbol of resistance, leadership, and moral clarity. Her presence anchors the work in courage and purpose, re-centering the narrative on hope, legacy, and the guiding force of justice amid periods of profound national change. Positioned within the disrupted structure, Tubman’s image affirms perseverance and the power of individual action within a broader collective history.
Material symbolism plays a central role in the work’s meaning. The weathering steel surface of Corten develops a rust-like patina over time, evoking endurance, aging, and memory, while referencing the material language of historic DC housing stock and urban infrastructure. The townhouse silhouettes function as “ghost houses,” honoring homes and communities lost to urban renewal. The fractured composition acknowledges trauma and structural loss, while also affirming continuity and resilience.
Enduring Dreams of Home responds directly to the DGS call for a three-dimensional freestanding sculpture rooted in historical and cultural narrative. Installed at Harriet Tubman Elementary School, the work is intended to serve as both a memorial and a teaching presence, encouraging conversation across generations about history, displacement, and the enduring human need for home.
Washington Glass Studio is deeply grateful to DGS, DC Public Schools, and the Harriet Tubman Elementary School community for the trust placed in our studio and in Michael Janis as the project artist. We look forward to creating a work that honors the past, engages the present, and inspires future generations.