A Garden of Decreation is a large-scale outdoor installation by New York-based artist Precious Okoyomon, created as the inaugural commission for MoMA PS1's Courtyard Commissions series. Developed with Rhode Island nursery issima, the project fills the museum's courtyard with more than 1,500 perennials and plants, encouraging native and invasive species to grow together. Inspired by philosopher Simone Weil's concept of decreation, the installation combines living gardens, sculpture and sound to explore ecological change, adaptation and the shifting relationships between urban nature and biodiversity over its two-year presentation.
A 25-foot-long teddy bear sculpture titled The Pleasure Principle forms the centerpiece of the installation, allowing visitors to enter the structure, hear recordings of Okoyomon's poetry and descend a blood-red slide before exiting through its mouth. Pollinators and butterflies inhabit the surrounding landscape, reinforcing the work's living ecosystem. The free public installation is now on view at MoMA PS1 in New York, where it will continue evolving naturally over the next two years.
Image Credit: John Kim
What Makes This Trend Stand Out
- Living Art Ecosystems
- Museum installations that incorporate evolving plant life and pollinator habitats create new possibilities for long-term visitor engagement, ecological storytelling and adaptive cultural programming.
- Immersive Ecological Play
- Large-scale sculptures, soundscapes and participatory pathways are reshaping public art into sensory environments where audiences experience climate, biodiversity and urban nature through play.
- Regenerative Museum Courtyards
- Underused outdoor museum spaces are becoming experimental landscapes that merge native planting, invasive species dialogue and community access into dynamic cultural infrastructure.
Sectors Adopting This
- Contemporary Art
- Artists and institutions are expanding beyond static exhibitions by creating living works that change over time and invite deeper public interaction with ecological themes.
- Landscape Design
- Collaborations between nurseries, artists and cultural venues highlight demand for biodiverse installations that balance aesthetics, habitat creation and environmental adaptation.
- Experiential Tourism
- Free public destinations with interactive sculptures and evolving natural environments offer cultural travelers distinctive reasons to return across multiple seasons.
