Unseen

On View June 30 – Fall 2026
Opening July 9, 2026, 6:30pm

UNSEEN, is a new site-specific art installation from New York- and Catskills-based glass artist Nisha Bansil. It aims to raise awareness, inspire action, and honor unhoused individuals in NYC.

The installation comprises an enormous pile of glass ginkgo leaves that will cascade down stone steps inside the Cathedral’s nave, mirroring both the forest floor and the urban sidewalk. Created at the Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) Studio Casting Center in Corning, NY, more than 50,000 cast-glass leaves will form a mound that grows during the installation’s run.

Artist Nisha Bansil said: “After living in the woods and then moving to New York City, I was struck by how, in the forest, the individual leaves are not discernible and instead become a collective background. In my neighborhood, it is the people who disappear. The individuals who make up this collective get lost, blending into the environment. Those who are unhoused are walked past and ignored. With UNSEEN, I want to translate the magnitude of the New York City housing crisis into a tangible, somatic experience, using ginkgo leaves to honor those who exist in a parallel landscape hidden in plain sight. I hope to bridge that gap in perception and turn what is often invisible into something impossible to ignore.”

Included with admission to the Cathedral during regular open hours:
Monday to Saturday, 9:30am - 5pm
Sunday, 12pm - 5pm

Additional leaves will be available for purchase in the Cathedral’s gift shop, with proceeds benefiting the Cathedral's food pantry.

Creating UNSEEN

To create the staggering number of individual cast-glass leaves required for the installation, Bansil worked with the team at the James Flaws & Marcia Weber Casting Center in The Studio at CMoG, a leading international center for the creation of large-scale cast works. Bansil’s method began with 40 leaves that the artist collected on the grounds of the Cathedral. Working within 60 x 90-inch large-scale kilns, Bansil filled each kiln with talc and used molds made from the collected leaves to leave detailed impressions. These impressions were then filled with powdered glass and fired. Through a process of time and temperature control within the kilns, the resulting leaves range from totally opaque to transparent. Bansil’s team worked for 14 weeks at the Casting Center, producing between 600 and 850 leaves per day and approximately 11,000–13,000 leaves per month to arrive at the requisite 50,000 for the installation.