Brooklyn Heights Library unveils new illuminated gravity-defying sculpture

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — The impressive new Brooklyn Heights branch of BPL has recently managed to merge memorable sculpture with borough-wide reading habits and a piece of Brooklyn’s history. Each leaf of a sculpture they described as “gravity-defying” contains data on each of the BPL’s 58 branches and describes the most popular book checked out in the year that branch opened.

Marking more than 125 years of library service to Brooklyn, the sculpture incorporates used denim and old technology donated by librarians and patrons, Jean Shin’s Something Borrowed, Something Blue —an illuminated and inverted hanging tree with roots at the ceiling—is visible from all sides and every level of the new Brooklyn Heights Library. At night, the sculpture resembles an intricate glowing lantern. During daylight hours, the contours of the leaves form the map of Brooklyn with each leaf representing a neighborhood where Brooklyn Public Library has a branch. Shin worked with Aurora Lampworks on the lighting design.

“With Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Brooklyn-based artist Jean Shin pays homage to public library service in Brooklyn, to the countless individuals who have walked through our doors seeking knowledge, and to more than a billion books borrowed over the last 125 years. Moreover, this beautiful and imaginative piece of art will inspire and uplift a new generation of library patrons for years to come,” said Linda E Johnson, President and CEO, Brooklyn Public Library.

Shin’s work draws on the symbolism of the tree, noting trees are inextricably linked to the history of knowledge via the production of paper and advances in the printing press, preceded by the tree as a sacred symbol of knowledge in many ancient cultures. In the present moment, the sacred symbol of the tree of knowledge is refracted through our awareness of the shared biological world being…