Public Art: Year of the Snake 2013

Every year in the St. Clair – Superior neighborhood, also called Asiatown (both of which are part of the larger Midtown section of Cleveland), twenty some Chinese zodiac sculptures are erected for a few short months. This year, is the Year of the Snake. As one of my immediate family members is a snake, we made sure go on a scavenger hunt to see all the sculptures.

I tried to find some history on this annual occurrence but have come up empty. The oldest sculptures I’ve seen are from the Year of the Dog in 2006. I have never seen any sculptures from the Year of the Pig, 2007 in person but one can still find many sculptures from Year of the Rat 2008 on display. My family did scavenger hunts for the Year of the Ox 2009 and the Year of the Tiger 2010. We completely missed the Year of the Rabbit 2011 and the Year of the Dragon 2012 but I found great pictures. I wish the sculptures were up longer.

If you would like to go on your own scavenger hunt, you get the list of sites here. It’s so worth it. When we went today, I included photographed and Dragons and Rabbits I found. If you only have time to make one or two stops, the best place to go is Technical College. There are a couple tigers, a couple rabbits, a dog, an ox, a snake and there is another snake right around the corner at Horsbough and Scott. It’s fantastic. The best place to see a bunch of snakes all in one stop is Asia Plaza, of course, as there are 5 displayed together.

I hope you enjoy my pictures.