Port Authority Names Seven Artists for Public Art at JFK’s New Terminal One
The commissions anchor a cultural program designed to give the 2.6 million-square-foot terminal a distinctly New York sense of place.
Overview
- The selected artists are Kelly Akashi, Firelei Báez, Julie Curtiss, Woody De Othello, Tomás Saraceno, Ilana Savdie, and Yinka Shonibare.
- Presented under the banner We Travel Under One Sky and organized by Culture Corps, the program emphasizes migration stories and Queens’ multicultural identity within an integrated arts, film, and digital experience.
- Highlighted works include Shonibare’s hand-painted batik kites Kites for Queens, Saraceno’s suspended Cloud Cities New York, Curtiss’s mosaic of oversize hands, Akashi’s 18-foot sculpture Migration of Flora, and De Othello’s baggage-claim installations.
- The all-international terminal is a $9.5 billion project opening in phases from 2026, starting with the headhouse and 14 gates, and reaching full buildout in 2030 with 23 gates and capacity for about 23 million passengers annually.
- New Terminal One is a cornerstone of the Port Authority’s $19 billion transformation of JFK, which also includes new construction, terminal modernizations, and a reworked roadway network.