HARRISBURG PORTAL (in Augusta, Georgia)

A gift to the City of Augusta, Georgia, funded by the Porter Fleming Foundation

Created by Larry Millard LLC, Sculptor, at A. L. Williams Park, Broad and Eve Streets

Completed and Dedicated March 13, 2020

A sculptural work celebrating the history—past, present, and future—of Augusta’s Harrisburg community.

This project involved creating a public art sculpture that became an iconic form in collaboration with the residents of the community of Harrisburg and with which they could identify. The sculpture’s final form evolved from initial ideas that relate to columns, obelisks, gates, or towers and had input from the residents. This sculpture is a vertical “place-maker” icon and a potential gathering place for residents to meet and possibly talk about Harrisburg. 

It is made up of perforated, stainless steel boxes that will “protect, house, and contain” objects collected from the people of the Harrisburg community. These material objects or artifacts have meaning to their owners and to those who know the history of the Harrisburg neighborhood.  

They include fragments (bricks, stones, and blocks) from buildings (houses, factories, and stores) of the present and past. Other objects are bottles, machine parts, tools, ceramics, metal utensils, and any objects that a resident feels are significant. 

Essentially, the sculpture and the objects contained relate to residents and give a perspective regarding the history of Harrisburg and what has happened in the evolution of the community. The public sculpture created by this process of collaboration is a historical time capsule. In addition to something that residents can relate to its significance, it can tell a story, contextualize lives, and share with others the “fabric” of Harrisburg. The objects were gathered in 2018 and 2019.

The significance and success of this public artwork are in creating a sense of belonging, ownership, and contribution to what makes Harrisburg a community. My intent is to foster inclusiveness in the process, to gather the objects and the stories about those objects into a structure that “fuses” the parts of the community and helps identify a sense of pride in Harrisburg and a sense of belonging.

This project is funded by the Porter-Fleming Foundation. There is additional support from the City of Augusta, the Harrisburg West End Community Group, the citizens of the Harrisburg community of Augusta, and the Greater Augusta Arts Council.

Larry Millard designed and built a sculpture that contains material objects or artifacts that have meaning to their owners and to those who know the history of Harrisburg. These objects are bottles, machine parts, tools, ceramics, china, glasses, metal utensils, metal objects, plumbing parts, electrical parts, and any objects that a resident feels are significant. Any object that an owner, resident, or former resident feels is important to help mark a location, house, business, house of worship, municipal building, or factory from the Harrisburg community has been included in the Harrisburg Portal.

By providing the object, the owner gives up and relinquishes all rights to ownership, control, and obligations to the object. It will be assigned no material or monetary value in its incorporation into the sculpture. The contributing owner may not, at a later date, reclaim the object in any way after contributing to the sculptural project. 

Copyrighted 1970 and forward.