32
Over the past year, Edinburgh, Scotland has witnessed the unfolding of a lovely and enigmatic homage to the written word. In libraries, theaters, and literary community centers, people began finding gorgeous, anonymously-created book sculptures. Each of these detailed artworks depicts a scene inspired by the books they're crafted from. Above you can see a T-Rex fighting tiny soldiers, all bursting from the ribboned pages of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. There are ten sculptures in all, and each is more incredible than the last.
Apparently the artist was inspired by conversations she'd had on Twitter, and each book sculpture is addressed to the Twitter handle of the institution where she's left them. Some of these sculptures languished for days before they were found hidden in nooks or bookshelves. Others were found immediately, and put in display for everybody to see.
The detail on these "gifts" is mesmerizing, as is the mystery of who made them. So far, nobody has stepped up claim them — and the literary community in Edinburgh is happy to let the artist remain anonymous.
These photographs were all taken by Chris Donia, and you can see bigger versions in his Flickr stream. He also has an incredible, detailed account on This Is Central Station of how the mysterious book sculptures were found, along with lots of information about the odd, tiny messages the creator left behind. All we know of the artist is that she's female (she explains that in a letter), and that she's done many crafts before but not book craft.
