A new installation at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in Manhattan uses more than 50,000 glass ginkgo leaves to draw attention to New York City’s more than 100,000 unhoused citizens, according to theartnewspaper.com.
The sculpture, titled UNSEEN (2026), was created by glass artist Nisha Bansil and unveiled on 30 June.
The artwork comprises thousands of glass ginkgo leaves arranged on the stone steps of one of the nave’s 14 bays at the world’s largest Protestant cathedral, located in Morningside Heights.
Bansil, who splits her time between New York City and the Catskills, conceived the work after receiving a $100,000 Maxwell/Hanrahan award from the nonprofit United States Artists. She explores natural phenomena and invisible forces in her art. The installation aims to make visible an underserved segment of society that the artist says often “disappears” in the urban environment.
The leaves were fabricated over 14 weeks at the Corning Museum of Glass studio in upstate New York. The studio’s 5,000 sq. ft casting centre, built as part of a $55m expansion in 2024, is North America’s only facility equipped for large-scale cast glass production. Between 600 and 850 pieces were produced daily, with varying transparency and tints of yellow. Bansil and her assistants used rubber moulds of ginkgo leaves collected on the cathedral grounds, stamping impressions in talc-filled kilns before firing glass powders into them. She omitted binders typically used in her preferred pâte de verre technique to accelerate the process.
For more than 40 years, the Cathedral’s Community Cares programme has provided food, clothing and resources to the city’s poor. In conjunction with UNSEEN’s unveiling, an additional 500 glass leaves were made available at the gift shop on a pay-what-you-wish basis, with proceeds supporting the programme’s food pantry.
St John the Divine has a sustained art programme, having previously presented temporary works such as Anne Patterson’s Divine Pathways (2023). Permanent works on display include Keith Haring’s Altarpiece (1990) and Meredith Bergmann’s Memorial to September 11 (2012).
A related outdoor installation on the same theme, Public Address, by artist-in-residence Alex Strada, is on view in Brooklyn’s Columbus Park until 26 July.
•Featured image: Bansil’s monumental work involved creating more than 50,000 glass ginkgo leaves over a period of 14 weeks/Photo: Adam Sternin