A new large-scale public light sculpture, Walk on Clouds, by Shanghai-based public artist Liu Yi has been permanently installed at Crystal Galleria Hongqiao in Shanghai’s Changning District.
The work combines stainless steel, acrylic, smart LED lighting and a three-dimensional sound system. Rather than presenting a static form, Walk on Clouds captures the movement of a figure strolling through the city. Its shape draws on the traditional Chinese imagery of auspicious clouds, creating an abstract “cloud walker” that appears to move between the built environment and everyday urban life.
A bright yellow bird at the top of the sculpture adds a playful touch to the otherwise flowing form. Its built-in breathing light gradually brightens and dims, creating a gentle rhythm that changes with the surrounding daylight and nighttime environment. The shifting light is intended to evoke the rhythm of breathing and walking, giving the sculpture a sense of continuous movement and life.
The installation also incorporates bird sounds collected on site through Liu’s long-running public art project Birdsong Radio. Launched in Shanghai in April 2022, the project invites people to record and share bird calls around them. It has so far collected about 1,500 recordings from 28 countries, creating a global sound map of urban nature.
At Crystal Galleria Hongqiao, the collected sounds have been edited into an ambient sound piece played around the sculpture, bringing elements of the site’s natural environment into the artwork.
Walk on Clouds joins Liu’s earlier Light Speakers series at the complex, extending the site’s public art program from smaller-scale works embedded in everyday spaces to a landmark sculpture at the center of the development.
