A shattered glass portrait meant to symbolize Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking through the glass ceiling was unveiled at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington this week, The Associated Press reports.
Harris is the first Black and Asian American woman to hold the office of vice president in the United States.
Creative agency BBH New York first came up with the idea to create the piece to memorialize Harris’ historic achievement. The agency then hired Swiss glass artist Simon Berger to create the one-of-a-kind piece.
Berger used a photo of Harris taken by New York photographer Celeste Soloman as inspiration for his work. He lightly hammered on a slab of laminated glass in order to create the shattered effect that forms the portrait.
“I hit the glass directly with the hammer, so that cracks and impacts occur,” he said in an email to AP. “Hard hits create abstraction and I ‘paint’ with targeted fine hits.”
“This will just be a wonderful visual emblem of this moment in time and hopefully people will reflect a little bit on all the barriers that have been broken by her election,” Holly Hotchner, president and CEO of the National Women’s History Museum, a co-sponsor of the project told The Associated Press.
Harris is aware of the installation but it’s not clear whether she would go to see it.
The portrait will be on public display at the Lincoln Memorial through Saturday night, according to AP.
