FlipNYC

Giant Flipbooks in Downtown Brooklyn

Beam Center brought mechanical urban storytelling to DUMBO, Brooklyn, with two of the world’s largest mechanical, solar-powered Flipbooks, built by youth in collaboration with architect Chee-Kit Lai, artist Ebony Bolt, and hundreds of community illustrators.

FLIPBOOKS are kinetic sculptures that tell animated stories through 100s of individual images that are rotated mechanically. Like the classic children’s toy, drawings are sequenced and create simple animations when activated. See them this Summer in DUMBO, Brooklyn!

Project Specialist Mitchell Dose explains flipbook mechanics

NYC Beam Fellow welding flipbook structure

NYC Beam Fellows are strong as steel!

Young animators sketching frames for flipbook

Section Styles inset-border

NYC BEAM FELLOWS

Beam Fellows (ages 15-18) worked hard in the Spring of 2019 creating and constructing FlipNYC. At our Inventgenuity Festival on May 5, 2019, Beam Fellows guided and led younger children and the public to create the Flipbook illustrations. On June 6, 2019, FlipNYC was unveiled in Dumbo, near the Manhattan Bridge Archway. YOU can view and play with the Flipbooks all summer long.

Building community through art and creativity, FlipNYC will bridge neighborhoods and offer a platform for connection among local school children, residents and visitors to DUMBO, Brooklyn.

NYC Beam Fellows 2019: Katia Beegan, Valery Cuellar, Eli Harrell, Natasha Moore, Candace Nelson, Darwin Pichardo, Diego Romero, Ethan Rothschild, Christal Jean-Soverall, Lucas Stettner, Dyani Woodson, Jade Ziyi Zhao (not all pictured)

Beam Project Staff: Mitchell Dose, Cassie Broadus-Foote & Philip Gabbana

Designer: Chee-Kit Lai (Mobile Studio Architects, London)

Illustration Artist: Ebony Bolt

Photo and Creative Credits: David Golann & Tim Fite