LONG ISLAND CITY, NY.- Artist and poet Precious Okoyomon (Nigerian-American, b. 1993) has transformed the MoMA PS1 courtyard into a living forest of plants, sculpture, and sound. On view from July 31, 2026 through 2028, Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation (2026) is Okoyomon’s largest outdoor installation to date and the first of its kind in New York City, featuring a wild garden that evolves with the seasons and a giant teddy bear sculpture that visitors can enter and climb through. The installation inaugurates MoMA PS1’s Courtyard Commission series, a new biannual program inviting artists to create site-specific, large-scale works for the museum’s outdoor courtyard, reimagining how experimental art can transform public space.

Accessible as part of MoMA PS1’s new free admission for all program, the installation invites audiences to experience the museum in new ways year-round, including during the Warm Up summer music series (Fridays through August 28).

The installation features an evolving landscape of grasses, flowers, weeds, sedges, pollinators, and vines, developed in collaboration with specialty nursery issima and accompanied by a sound piece composed by Oliver Leith. The garden brings together species often viewed as oppositional, but which in reality can co-exist: native and invasive plants, annuals and perennials, cultivated and wild growth.

Inspired by French philosopher Simone Weil’s concept of “decreation,” the continual making and unmaking of the world, the installation creates a space of exploration and rest that remains adaptable to changing conditions. Anticipating the landscapes of the near future, in consideration of the unpredictabilities of climate changes and other instabilities, Okoyomon proposes a garden of mutation and adaptability for the city. Its ever-adapting characteristics anchor viewers in the present while imagining the future, increasing sensitization to their surroundings through observation, time, and meandering.

At the center of the installation is a 25-foot-long teddy bear sculpture, titled The Pleasure Principle (2026). A recurring motif in Okoyomon’s work, the teddy bear invokes a wild animal culturally transformed into a toy, companion, or transitional object—here a nod to what the artist calls the “creature within us.” Visitors can climb up a set of stairs to enter through the bear’s rear, where they experience audio of Okoyomon reading their poetry. Visitors then exit the sculpture through a slide that leads out of the bear’s mouth.

“We are thrilled to launch our new Courtyard Commission series with Precious Okoyomon’s most ambitious work to date, extending their practice at a new scale with playfulness and philosophical depth,” said Ruba Katrib, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs. “An ever-evolving site of recreation and rest, this installation will offer a welcoming and immersive green space for both museum visitors and the Long Island City community over the next two years.”





Precious Okoyomon

Precious Okoyomon (Nigerian-American, b. 1993) is a poet and artist. They have had one-person exhibitions at the LUMA Westbau, Zurich, Switzerland; the Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Performance Space New York; the Aspen Art Museum; The Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid Foundation, Madrid, Spain; The Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca, New York; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria.

They were included in the Baltic Triennial 13, Tallinn, Estonia; the 58th Belgrade Biennial, Serbia; the 59th Venice Biennale, Italy; the 2022 Okayama Art Summit, Japan; the 11th Sequences Biennial, Reykjavik, Iceland; the 2023 Thailand Biennial, Chiang Rai, as well as in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK; LUMA Westbau, Zurich, Switzerland; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany; LUMA Arles, France; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Nigerian Pavillion, 60th Venice Biennale, Italy; Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland.

Okoyomon’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany and LUMA Arles, France. Okoyomon was the 2021 recipient of the Frieze Art Fair Artist Award, as well as the 2021 Chanel Next Art Prize. In 2024, But Did You Die?, their second book of poetry, was co-published by the Serpentine and Wonder Press.

Courtyard Commission: Precious Okoyomon is organized by Ruba Katrib, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs.