Harmonia Rosales: Unbound and Untitled Ceiling Mural 

Production | Acquisition Grant

With a newly-commissioned sculpture and mural painting by Harmonia Rosales, King’s Chapel—located along Boston’s Freedom Trail—seeks to confront its historical relationship to slavery, honoring the 219 identified children, women and men enslaved by ministers and members of King’s Chapel.

Outside the chapel, visitors will first encounter Unbound, a figurative bronze sculpture by Rosales depicting a woman freeing birds from a cage. The imagery – symbolizing freedom, transformation, and spiritual release – honors the resilience and personhood of those once held in bondage and invites the public to engage with the church’s complex legacy.

A future phase of the project includes a ceiling mural inside the sanctuary. Rosales will paint a mural along the church’s nave of birds flying, producing a trompe l’oeil effect as if the roof of the building has been opened to the sky. Several Black and Indigenous figures feature at the composition’s edges, as if from high above on a new balcony—restoring visibility and presence to those long erased from Boston’s early history.

Rosales’s intention is for her memorial to honor the individuals who were enslaved while presenting a joyful and uplifting vision of empowerment and freedom.

The project is in collaboration with non-profit architecture and design firm MASS Design Group.