Towering 30 feet in the air, two bronze activists holding picket signs will protest permanently on the bike bridge near Interstate 80 in Berkeley.

The sculptures are part of ten 12-foot tall statues collectively called "Berkeley Big People," a newly-installed addition to a project by Berkeley's Civic Arts Commission to build public art at the city's entrances. A celebration for the artwork was held on Saturday.

Artist Scott Donahue and Mayor Tom Bates, along with local residents and visitors, were part of the celebration held at the bike trail overpass of I-80.

"Berkeley has a lot of energy," Donahue said. "I want this sculpture to really feel like Berkeley."

Donahue was one of three finalists in a national competition in 2002 to create a piece of art for one of the city's entrances.

The Berkeley Civic Arts Commission awarded Donahue a contract in 2003, and it took five years to design and construct the sculptures.

Overall, the project cost $197,000, exceeding its original budget by $84,000 due to the rise of material costs over the last five years, said Mary Ann Merker, civic arts coordinator for the city of Berkeley. The project was partly funded by the bike bridge's budget, which reserved 1.5 percent of its funds for the artwork.

Each one of the statues represents a part of the Berkeley community. The structure on the east side of the bridge represents city and academic life, depicting a scientist with a double helix model, two activists and the UC Berkeley Campanile.

The west side sculpture, to be installed within the next two weeks, will represent the natural life of the city, portraying people enjoying the park, a dog with a Frisbee and a kite-flyer, Merker said.

At the base of the pedestals are a number of smaller bas reliefs, or structures that protrude from flat surfaces on a piece of art. Some of the reliefs include Mario Savio standing atop a police car during the Free Speech Movement and an image of a lone protester perched on a tree to represent the tree-sit protest in the oak grove near Memorial Stadium, among other images.

"Just in protests, that's a lot of historic material," Donahue said.

David Seaborg, UC Berkeley alumnus and son of former UC Berkeley Chancellor Glenn Seaborg, attended the celebration on Saturday and said that he finds the sculptures to be inspiring.

"I think it not only captures the history of Berkeley ... with all the progressive aspects of the protests. It also caught the idea of Berkeley as an institute of learning," Seaborg said.

Tags: CIVIC ART COMMISSION