Three enormous totems have been erected in Brooklyn Bridge Park by the water. Here's what they mean.

"The exhibition, located across Pier 1 and the Dumbo intersection of Washington and Plymouth Streets, features four large-scale bronze sculptures and three towering redwood totems. Standing between 20 and 22 feet tall, the totems—"Reverence," "Awareness" and "Listening"—were hand-carved by De Othello using chainsaws and grinders. They are etched with symbolic reliefs: outstretched hands signifying compassion, kneeling figures for reverence, ears for listening and birds representing freedom. Designed to weather alongside the environment, these totems will physically evolve with the passage of time and the salt air of the harbor."

"At the heart of the exhibition is De Othello's exploration of nkisi-ritual objects from Western and Central Africa believed to embody spiritual presences and channel protective forces. By drawing on this tradition, the artist elevates the mundane into the miraculous. De Othello is known for manipulating everyday objects like clocks and phones, warping them into "uncanny repositories of psychic significance." In Guardian Spirit, this manifests in works like "thought in mind," where an oversized bronze phone and comb suggest the immense weight of a single conversation or a daily grooming ritual."

"Other bronze works, such as "Capacity," "inner knowing" and "Involution," feature trumpet horn-shaped appendages that merge into human ears and hands."

Guardian Spirit is a new public exhibition by Woody De Othello in Brooklyn Bridge Park, featuring seven monumental works across Pier 1 and the Dumbo intersection. The show includes four large-scale bronze sculptures and three towering redwood totems, each standing about 20 to 22 feet tall. The totems—Reverence, Awareness, and Listening—are hand-carved with chainsaws and grinders and etched with symbolic reliefs such as outstretched hands, kneeling figures, ears, and birds. The redwood works are designed to weather and physically evolve with salt air and time. The bronze sculptures draw on nkisi ritual objects from Western and Central Africa, elevating daily routines into the miraculous through uncanny, psychologically charged everyday forms like an oversized phone and comb and horn-shaped appendages merging into ears and hands.

Read at Time Out New York