Cultural DistrictClick here to go back to the home page

For Arts Landing, Owunna and Redd present This Is the Body of the Sun,  a monumental sculpture depicting the solar god Ra. Originating from ancient Egyptian myth, Ra embodies discipline, leadership, and inner sovereignty—qualities that resonate deeply within Owunna and Redd’s shared vision of spiritual and cultural reclamation. Derived from studies into geometry, cosmology, and vibrational practice, This is the Body of the Sun suggests that spiritual skill is the alchemical key that converts vision into collective action. As a moral anchor and visionary guide, the deity urges creative talent and luminous selfhood to be wielded in the service of communal uplift.

About the Artists

Mikael Owunna is a Nigerian-American multimedia artist, filmmaker, engineer, Fulbright Scholar, President of the City of Pittsburgh’s Public Art & Civic Design Commission, and co-founder of Rainbow Serpent with Marques Redd. His work revives African cosmologies and futurist frameworks, blending ancestral wisdom with technology to envision boundless futures for marginalized communities.

Marques Redd is a multimedia artist, independent scholar, and traditional African cosmologist.  Leveraging ritual, performance, film, scholarship, and public installation, he revives the lineage of queer African “gatekeepers”—spirit workers believed to channel both masculine and feminine energies to connect the physical and spiritual realms.

This is the Body of the Sun by Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd is commissioned by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and Rainbow Serpent for Arts Landing.