READ: A Pathway to Hope is a permanent public work rooted in the memory of a community in motion - a Logan neighborhood whose resilience is written across generations of migration, struggle, and aspiration. My process began with deep community engagement: meetings, workshops, personal observation, and conversations with people working and living through the Logan Library.

At the time of the commission, Logan's community included African Americans and immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa, Cambodia, Vietnam, and South America - each carrying their own fragments of cultural memory. I drew from those fragments, translating the word "READ" into Khmer, Arabic, and Amharic scripts, and pulling inspiration from Madiba shirt patterns from South Africa and Mehndi designs from India. These visual languages, so often erased from public space, are given presence here.

The seven-panel work interweaves collage, the written names of writers of color, and the poem READ by Philadelphia Poet Trapeta B. Mayson - a layering of voices that refuses silence. As Nii Owoo reflects: "My goal for a community portrait located in the newly renovated Logan Library community room is for viewers to feel this community's vibrancy, see its diversity, and celebrate the act of reading."