Okoyomon's teddy bear garden in Queens runs to 2028

You can climb through a giant teddy bear in Queens and step out into a wild garden. That is the centrepiece of Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation, a 2026 work by Precious Okoyomon. Free entry to the courtyard at MoMA PS1 lets anyone try it.

Okoyomon is a Nigerian-American artist and poet, born in 1993. This is their largest outdoor work so far. It opened in July 2026 and stays on view through 2028. Ruba Katrib, chief curator at MoMA PS1, organised it.

What grows in the courtyard

Plants that people often see as opposites share the ground. Native and invasive species grow beside each other, as do annuals and perennials. Cultivated and wild growth meet there too. Family Style reports about 2,000 varieties in all. Milkweed, yarrow, poppies and morning glory are among them.

Okoyomon worked with landscape architect Preston Linck and a Rhode Island nursery, Issima. They had also worked with both on a 2021 rooftop commission at the Aspen Art Museum. Of the courtyard they say: "There's never been a garden there, and it feels like there should". Their own name for the work is a "dream apocalypse garden".

The bear and its poem

Visitors meet the bear, titled Pleasure Principle, which Family Style puts at 25 feet tall. Inside, pink fibreglass walls play a recording of the artist laughing and reading a poem. Oliver Leith composed the sound piece. It is Okoyomon's biggest sculpture so far, the magazine adds.

"I knew I wanted to make a giant bear in the garden because I wanted to protect my forest"

In the artist's telling, then, the bear guards the garden as well as inviting people in.

The context

The title draws on decreation (the continual making and unmaking of the world), an idea from Simone Weil. This is the first Courtyard Commission, a biannual programme of works made for the courtyard.

Plan a visit

MoMA PS1 sits at 22-25 Jackson Avenue in Queens. Admission is free for all. The museum says its free admission programme covers the garden. Its pages describe a garden that changes with the seasons.

Our view

We think a free garden suits readers who have never entered a gallery. A giant bear to climb through is an easy way in.

Looking serious while climbing out of a teddy bear is a skill I lack.

Would you visit?