This strange bear slumps in the corner of a university quad. There’s nothing cuddly about the oversized creature, or the abnormally large lamp slicing into its head.

Top Places in Providence

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence Athenaeum

A 19th century library favored by Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, known by locals as "the Ath."

41.8258, -71.4063

Added by Molly McBride Jacobson

Providence, Rhode Island

Edna Lawrence Nature Lab

An unusual library of dead things at the Rhode Island School of Design.

41.8270, -71.4080

Added by GreyGryphonRampant

Providence, Rhode Island

Crook Point Bascule Bridge

To avoid the demolition costs this abandoned drawbridge was simply left in the up position.

41.8243, -71.3834

Added by The Minx

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Untitled (Lamp/Bear) by Swiss artist Urs Fischer is a unique addition to Brown University’s campus. It certainly keeps with the school’s reputation as the most free-spirited member of the Ivy League.

The jumbo-sized cast bronze sculpture of a teddy bear eerily bisected by a lamp is on loan to the University from Steven and Alexandra Cohen. It’s one of many sculptural representations of bears across the campus that honor Brown’s mascot, a brown bear. Visitors should be sure to check the office windows nearest to the installation where one clever Brunonian had created a miniature (or should one say normal-sized?) Lamp/Bear of their own.

If you aren’t going to Providence, Rhode Island, anytime soon, don’t despair. There are other Lamp/Bear siblings out in the world. A second version of the sculpture is currently sitting in the Qatar’s Hamad International Airport’s duty-free hall. A third one exists as well, but it’s on private property and is unviewable to the public.