BOSTON, MASS.- For one evening this April, Boston City Hall turned green. Projected portraits, routes and words gathered from residents across Greater Boston moved over the concrete of the Brutalist landmark's atrium, while the building's exterior lights glowed the same color, completing what its creators describe as a temporary monument to a city in motion. The timing was pointed: as Boston marks 250 years of American independence, its Un-monument | Re-monument | De-monument: Transforming Boston initiative is asking artists to rethink what a monument can be.


[Crowds gathered at Boston City Hall to watch the Crossroads projection. Photo by Caleb Hawkins.]

Crossroads, a public art exhibition by Chinese new media artist Wei Wu and architect-artist Yujin Cao, ran at the Mezzanine Gallery of Boston City Hall from Feb 16 to May 8. Presented by the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, the project was selected by a jury as one of only four proposals to reach the final round. Though the exhibition has closed, the questions it raised remain sharply relevant: What can a monument be? Who gets to be remembered in public space? And how can a city recognize the people whose daily movements shape its civic identity?

For Wu, whose practice spans projection, augmented reality, interactive systems and spatial storytelling, Crossroads was never simply an exhibition inside a government building. It was an attempt to treat City Hall as a living civic site, where public memory, architecture and everyday movement overlap.

"I am interested in how technology can open a temporary space where hidden narratives can appear," Wu said. "I see my role as an amplifier, bringing forward hidden voices, people's stories and the spirit of Boston through something that can function as a temporary monument."

Developed through an open call, Crossroads gathered movement-based portraits and reflections from residents across the Greater Boston area. The project shifted attention from iconic landmarks to ordinary rhythms such as commuting, walking, running, wandering and gathering, revealing how daily movement becomes part of a city's shared identity.

"When we speak of movement, we are not only speaking about the Boston Marathon," Wu said. "We are also speaking about the subway at dawn, the steps we take to care for family, and the walk home after work. Crossroads offers each stride as a window into Boston's civic spirit, a spirit of persistence, mutual support and continuous becoming. Public art is not decoration; it is a way for a city to see itself, and to recognize how it is shaped through motion, day after day."

The project combined visual installation, public storytelling and site-responsive projection. Cao contributed a series of 16 gradient green canvas installations that introduced a tactile, architectural layer into the atrium, softening the building's monumental concrete presence while inviting visitors to pause, gather and reflect. Wu designed the projection component, using light, image and spatial sequencing to activate the architecture of City Hall and translate personal narratives into a public visual experience.

"As an architect and artist working across architecture, installation and civic engagement, I was interested in creating a temporary dialogue with Boston City Hall's Brutalist architecture, transforming the atrium into a space not only for passage, but also for reflection, gathering and civic participation," Cao said. "For me, public art is most powerful when it enables people to recognize themselves not merely as audiences, but as active participants in shaping the city."

The timing gave these ideas particular resonance. On April 16, days before the Boston Marathon, the artists presented Crossroads Projection Night, a special reception and one-night screening hosted with the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, free and open to the public, that activated the installation through projection. Community voices and public submissions appeared across the space in ephemeral sequences, forming a collective portrait that unfolded over the concrete surfaces of City Hall.

The building itself joined the gesture. That night, the exterior lights of City Hall glowed green for Crossroads, echoing the gradient green banners inside and making the artwork legible from across the plaza. For one evening, inside and out, the entire building became the temporary monument the artists had imagined.

Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as an officially registered competitor, attended the reception in support of the project, joined by members of 261 Fearless, the global women's running network she founded. Their presence connected Crossroads to a longer history of movement, resilience and women's participation in public life. Survivors and members of communities affected by the Boston Marathon bombing also joined the evening and shared moving reflections, underscoring one of the project's central ideas: that movement through a city is never only physical. It also carries memory, grief, recovery and collective strength.

[From left: Boston Marathon bombing survivor advocate Lynn Julian, artists Wei Wu and Yujin Cao, and Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon, at the Crossroads reception at Boston City Hall on April 16. Photo by Annielly Camargo for the Mayorʼs Office of Arts and Culture.]

For Wu and Cao, these themes are also personal. Both artists were born in China and educated in both China and the United States, and both are graduates of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where their training in architecture and design shaped how they approach public space. As Chinese-born women presenting work at the center of Boston's civic life, they bring to Crossroads their own experience of moving between cultures, an experience that echoes the project's ideas of migration, crossing and belonging.

The setting itself was significant. Boston City Hall, a landmark of Brutalist architecture, is famous for its imposing concrete form and civic symbolism. By bringing intimate narratives, green canvas structures and projected imagery into the building, Crossroads gave personal stories the scale of civic architecture, a reminder that Boston's grand narrative is itself composed of individual journeys, choices and acts of perseverance. The exhibition's title refers not only to physical intersections, but also to the emotional and cultural thresholds crossed by immigrants, runners, workers, students, families and long-term residents as they move through urban space.

On projection night, visitors slowed, gathered and grew quiet as portraits, routes and words drawn from the community appeared across the walls of City Hall. Many were visibly moved. In the days that followed, audience members posted extended reflections on Instagram, writing about the resonance they felt and the emotional force of watching the community's stories light up a civic landmark. One participant, a lifelong East Boston resident featured in the exhibition, wrote that she "could not be prouder to be chosen and featured at the Crossroads Gallery... alongside some of the best residents who used movement to make a difference." Sharing a photograph of the atrium and the projection washing over the gradient green banners, she added: "If the awkward and meek kid from Eastie ever thought she'd see herself displayed on the walls of [Boston City Hall] as a grown adult, I'd think you were crazy." For residents who recognized their own images and stories on the walls of a government building, the evening carried an unmistakable sense of empowerment, a signal that the city's story belongs to the people who move through it every day.

That, ultimately, is the project's answer to the question Boston is asking in its anniversary year. As cities around the world reconsider whose histories are represented in public space, Crossroads suggests that public memory does not always need to be fixed in a permanent statue. It can be participatory: carried by people, activated through encounter and projected, however briefly, onto the shared surfaces of urban life. A monument of this kind does not ask to be admired from a distance. It empowers residents to step into the city's story, and to carry it forward with every stride.