A new international public art installation is making its U.S. debut floating around the rotunda of Dayton’s Arcade.
"Think Freedom" is the creation of Sarajevo artist Edina Seleskovic, and one of many art projects and events complimenting the 2025 Spring NATO Parliamentary Assembly, happening in Dayton on May 23-26.
In the early 1990s, Seleskovic was a 16-year-old international exchange student in the U.S. When it was time to return home to Sarajevo, she learned her country was embroiled in war and her mother told her to stay in America.
“Freedom is like air. We don’t think about it until it’s too hard to breathe,” Seleskovic said.
Decades later, this is how the visual artist defines freedom. It’s also the theme of her latest installation, "Think Freedom." Its project is rooted in a disturbing experience the artist had in 2015.
The sculpture of the bird was inspired by a postage stamp she designed to commemorate 100 years since the beginning of the first World War. That poster stamp had on it a painted bird of freedom flying over Sarajevo.
"That postage stamp was censored and it was never printed," Seleskovic said. "That kind of got me to really think about freedom because like everyone, I didn't think about freedom for myself until I had the censorship happen, until the freedom of creation was taken away from me."
The installation has now grown to encompass thousands of hand sculpted bird-like images, similar to sea birds with their wings extended out. Each creature is made of two metal strips attached in the middle so they can be suspended by wire from a cable. It creates the illusion of a flock soaring together.
"I wanted to create with the sculpture a motion of going from the outside into the inside space and then flying out and above," Seleskovic said.
Their wings carry messages from about 5,000 high school students from across Europe expressing their ideas of freedom.
"Freedom is a platform that can elevate their voices and then carry them throughout different regions and different cities," Seleskovic told an audience in the rotunda Wednesday morning when her work was revealed. "Bringing that understanding that we are all alike a lot more than we're different and bringing the understanding that our honesty and our hopes and our visions should come together in order to create a better future."
In every city that temporarily hosts Seleskovic's work, she engages with area artists and students.
Recently via video, she talked with 10 middle schoolers at City Day Community School. Principal Paula Graham said the student were very interested in this project.
"We wanted to allow the students to see what Dayton can provide," Graham said. "And really how small our world is because when we're talking about a global partnership with a global artist, what an opportunity for our kids."
Seleskovic challenged Graham's students to flush out their ideas around the concept of freedom and what it means to them in an essay. This week, the students met Seleskovic as she assembled about 400 metal birds in the Arcade rotunda.
Their personal messages about freedom are also added to these winged sculptures.
"To me freedom means to not be opposed, to be able to do what you want to be able to not be looked at differently because of a characteristic like such as skin color, religion or sexuality," 14-year-old Jordan Kinlock said.
He said knowing his ideas will be share with other youth around the world gives him hope.
"There's a lot of corruption happening and maybe someone in Belgium or somewhere else wherever it's going to go is going to see it," Kinlock said. "They're gonna see there is good somewhere else."
Lisa Hanson, president and CEO of Culture Works, said it's been a great opportunity to connect some of Dayton's youth with this international artist who has a personal connection with the Bosnian Civil War and the Dayton Peace Accords.
"There is nothing more powerful than art in any of its forms to light up the brain in our children, light up the heart, connect them and see that you know what, you have the power to change the future for all of us," Hanson said.
Culture Works partnered with U.S. Rep. Mike Turner’s office to bring in this art piece to Dayton. The Dayton Arcade and Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District were project sponsors. The Legacy Event Group took the lead in stringing up the bird sculptures.
Seleskovic hoped her piece will cause the NATO visitors to consider the youth as they work in their committees.
"To really walk into the space and to have an emotional experience with the installation. I hope to make them stop and think for a second, at least, to make then realize there is more beyond the news and the media and the politics," Seleskovic said. "They are young people who really depend on the decisions they make."
This installation will be up in the Arcade rotunda through June 2.
