(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s largest zoo is preparing to launch its first-ever statewide art project to celebrate 60 years in operation. Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines is sponsoring Roar & Explore, which will feature life-sized African lion sculptures that will be displayed in all corners of the state, creating a lion art trail. The zoo’s Alex Payne says they’re recruiting artists from anywhere in Iowa to decorate the lions. “We’ll have 26 of these sculptures and we’re looking for Iowa artists to come and submit their designs,” Payne says. “We will go through the different submissions and select 26 different artists to paint these sculptures that we’ll then put out across the entire state of Iowa.”

In the past, some Iowa communities have taken on projects with sculptures resembling local team mascots, for example, but Payne says Roar & Explore will offer a different type of canvas for the artists.”There’ll be steel sheets of lion silhouettes and so there will be intersecting lions, one will be a lioness and one will be a lion,” Payne says. “Instead of a three-dimensional kind of life-like lion, it’ll be a flat silhouette where artists can then come up with different designs, so if they want to make it look like a lion with different designs, you can do that or it could just be a different abstract type design.”

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The steel lions will be actual size — about three-and-a-half feet tall and six-feet long. Artists are encouraged to get creative and submit their visions for how these lions could be put on the prowl across Iowa. “They can go to our Facebook page or blankparkzoo.com/sculpture and there they can find our call for artists,” he says. “They can submit their designs there as well, and then we will have a committee go over all the different designs and select the winners and we will then reach out to them early next year.”

Finished sculptures will be installed across Iowa in April and they’ll remain on public display through Labor Day weekend. So why lions? The zoo’s lion conservation center is set to debut in 2026, tripling the space dedicated to the animals, and lions have long been an icon of the zoo, symbolizing strength, courage, and community.