You could be a part of a new art installation going up at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. The Brooklyn Eagle reports that artist Isabelle Garbani is “seeking volunteers to knit and crochet flowers out of plastic bags” for her project, “Post War Blues,” in which “thousands of colorful flowers…will burst out of a train car,” forming a 300-foot-long floral ribbon in the Terminal’s atrium.
Said Garbani:
“I am asking the Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and surrounding communities to consider knitting or crocheting flowers for this new project,” Garbani wrote in an email to the Brooklyn Eagle. “My goal is for ‘Post War Blues’ to function as a meaningful public art engagement: to serve as the glue that can bind a community together, and to show that despite our differences and our violent past, we can make something beautiful and meaningful together.”
According to the project’s website, the art piece is meant to bring attention to the Brooklyn Army Terminal’s history as a military base for World War II:
A lot of our inventions come from the war effort and the defense budget. Post War Blues addresses the issue of what happens to war innovations after a conflict is over and the possibility of innovating without violence or the threat of violence.
A ribbon of plastic flowers, crocheted and knitted from recycled plastic bags, bursts out of the old train car that sits inside the Brooklyn Army Terminal building. The flowers rise and slowly fall on the tracks in undulating waves, all the way to the end of the building atrium.
Here’s a rendering of what the installation would look like, from Garbani’s site:
(Photo: Timothy Vogel)
