A virtual portal has opened in Philadelphia, spreading the City of Brotherly Love’s charm around the world.
The sculpture features a small camera above an eight-foot-tall screen, which displays live video from Lithuania, Poland and Ireland - rotating between Vilnius, Lublin and Dublin every three minutes.
Located in Philadelphia’s LOVE Park, the portal went live at a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week.
Video posted to social media shows Dubliners waving Irish Flags and holding signs that read “Hello Philly!” On the American side, Philadelphians cheered and waved to their connections across the pond.
The portal arrives in preparation for the city’s celebration of America’s semiquincentennial -the nation’s 250th birthday - in 2026. Michael Newmuis, the city of Philadelphia’s 2026 director, said the sculpture “is so much more than just art - it’s a global conversation starter.”
“It’s building bridges instead of walls,” he added.
The portal project began in 2021, when Lithuanian founder Benediktas Gylys first connected residents of Vilnius and Lublin through a screen. “This is my life’s mission, my dream - to build more sculptures in all countries around the world so that we could all meet as humankind together and recognize that we are all inseparably connected, flying on this tiny spaceship called Earth,” Gylys told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.