{"id":21076,"date":"2025-10-25T19:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T19:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/21076\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T19:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T19:27:09","slug":"new-public-sculpture-connects-san-antonio-with-the-milky-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/21076\/","title":{"rendered":"New Public Sculpture Connects San Antonio With the Milky Way\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new solar system-scaled public sculpture awaits visitors to San Antonio\u2019s Pearsall Park on the southwest side of the city.<\/p>\n<p>Artist <a href=\"https:\/\/glasstire.com\/2021\/01\/26\/san-antonio-public-art-unveils-carlos-cortes-and-doroteo-garzas-najo-jam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Doroteo Garza<\/a>\u2019s Uju\u0101ln\u0101n (Grand Sky), commissioned by the City of San Antonio, presents a series of 10 planetary sculptures placed in the park at an approximately 1:11 billion scale of the solar system. The title is derived from the Pajalate language of the region\u2019s original Coahuiltecan inhabitants.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/glasstire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Doroteo_inner-planets.jpg?x88956\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-348781\" class=\"wp-image-348781 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Doroteo_inner-planets-600x359.jpg\" alt=\"A large-scale public sculpture in a public park composed of a row of spheres depicting the sun with planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.\" width=\"600\" height=\"359\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-348781\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doroteo Garza, \u201cUju\u0101ln\u0101n (Grand Sky)\u201d (detail), 2025<\/p>\n<p>A statement by Mr. Garza explains that the San Antonio River and its environs were called Yanaguana, and the Coahuiltecan ancestral creation story places Yanaguana as the Milky Way in the center of the universe.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Garza said his work is meant to encourage park visitors to reflect on their relationship with the landscape and cosmos in a shared public space. \u201cThe hope is that patrons will contemplate their relationships to the natural world and the sky to gauge the immensity of the Milky Way,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/glasstire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Doroteo_Saturn.jpg?x88956\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-348783\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-348783 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Doroteo_Saturn-600x376.jpg\" alt=\"A large-scale public sculpture in a public park, with a parent and child walking between planet Saturn in foreground and Jupiter high on a hill in the background.\" width=\"600\" height=\"376\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-348783\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doroteo Garza, \u201cUju\u0101ln\u0101n (Grand Sky)\u201d (detail), 2025<\/p>\n<p>The Saturn sculpture features a metal ring with incised lyrics from a song by the Michigan punk band Cloud Rat: \u201cI wish I could carry you with me into the eternal, living in the happiest moments.\u201d Mr. Garza told Glasstire that including the words was inspired by a dream his mother had where she saw Saturn with writing on its rings. The Sun sculpture is in the form of a sundial, and a ceramic plaque placed on the Earth sculpture reads: \u201cYou Are Here.\u201d The Pluto sculpture, overlooking the park\u2019s periphery 1,539.33 feet from the Sun sculpture, is set next to a laser-cut metal screen that depicts a galactic spiral, along with Coahuiltecan-derived imagery.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/glasstire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Doroteo_Pluto.jpg?x88956\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-348782\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-348782 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Doroteo_Pluto-505x620.jpg\" alt=\"A large-scale public sculpture in a public park composed of a sculpture depicting planet Pluto and a laser-cut metal screen with an image of the Milky Way galaxy spiral..\" width=\"505\" height=\"620\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-348782\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doroteo Garza, \u201cUju\u0101ln\u0101n (Grand Sky)\u201d (detail), 2025<\/p>\n<p>Materials for the multipart sculpture were locally sourced, including handmade mosaic tiles from Heye Mosaics.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/events.getcreativesanantonio.com\/public-art\/ujualnan-grand-sky\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Uju\u0101ln\u0101n (Grand Sky) <\/a>will be unveiled on Monday, October 27, at 10 a.m., with a Department of Arts &amp; Culture ceremony in Pearsall Park featuring Mr. Garza and Dr. Chris Packham, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, who assisted with scaling the sculpture throughout the park and other scientific logistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new solar system-scaled public sculpture awaits visitors to San Antonio\u2019s Pearsall Park on the southwest side of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15833,15834,4039,82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-21076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-city-of-san-antonio-department-of-arts-culture","9":"tag-doroteo-garza","10":"tag-public-art","11":"tag-san-antonio","12":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","13":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}