This Artist Put 2,500 of Her Favorite Books in a Massive Rotating Library on Miami Beach

The 20-foot-tall installation, titled “Library of Us,” featured titles that hold personal meaning for British artist Es Devlin—who invited visitors to sit on nearby benches and read

Ella Feldman - Daily Correspondent

December 8, 2025 3:56 p.m.

Visitors look at “Library of Us,” an installation by British artist Es Devlin, during Miami Art Week. Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images

A glowing triangle that rotates like the needle of a compass in a pool of water on the beach might not be the first thing you imagine when you picture a library. That is, unless you’re at Miami Art Week.

British artist Es Devlin’s dazzling installation, “Library of Us,” includes 2,500 books that hold personal meaning for Devlin, who also works as a set designer and has collaborated with artists like Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga. The book collection—color-coded to create a rainbow gradient—contains everything from childhood favorites to plays Devlin has created sets for.

The 20-foot-tall bookshelf, which sits on the sands of Miami Beach, explores “how we build ourselves out of what we read,” the artist tells the New York Times’ Nazanin Lankarani. “It’s an experiment in seeing through the eyes of others.”

The bookshelf was commissioned by Faena Art, a nonprofit that often funds large-scale installations during Art Basel inside and nearby the beachside Faena Hotel. The organization celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

“I thought it would be great to invite Es because she’s bold, magnificent, strong and magical,” Argentine developer and collector Alan Faena, the founder of Faena Art, tells the Times.

“Library of Us” invites members of the public to step onto its slowly rotating platform and, if they’re so inclined, pick up one of the extra volumes placed on a long curved table, sit down on one of the installation’s benches and read. The installation also features an LED screen stretching across the library and projecting lines from the books.

The library’s compass-like form was inspired by Italian novelist Umberto Eco, who described libraries as “a compass of the mind, pointing us in the direction of new explorations,” Devlin tells Artnet’s Sarah Cascone.

Quick fact: What is Umberto Eco famous for?

The Italian writer is best known for his novel The Name of the Rose, a murder mystery published in 1980.

A voracious reader, Devlin says she reads as many as 300 books in one year. When her installation concludes, she plans to donate the books to Miami public schools and libraries so others can read them, too, reports Artnet.

But some of the 2,500 books Devlin selected have been banned from some schools and libraries across the country, including in Florida. She says these bans helped inform her project, which features many titles with different viewpoints sitting side by side on the shelves.

“I couldn’t live without Margaret Atwood. I couldn’t live without Octavia Butler. I couldn’t live without Toni Morrison. So they’re all there, and they’re not banned here, but they are banned in some places,” she tells the Miami Herald’s Amanda Rosa.

“That’s something you feel when you see the waters rising on this collection of books that disagree with each other. We must be allowed to hold contrasting ideas together.”

Visitors to Miami Art Week were moved by the installation, as the Associated Press’ Daniel Kozin reports.

“I’m blown away,” Kaz Fernandez, a visitor who spent more than half an hour at “Library of Us,” tells the AP. “I feel inspired. I feel connected. And just to know that these are the books that inspired her, it’s a gift.”

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