Precious Okoyomon Unveils 25-Foot Teddy Bear Slide at MoMA PS1
Part of the artist’s new garden of dreams installation in New York.
Summary
Artist Precious Okoyomon has unveiled an outdoor installation at New York's MoMA PS1 The artwork features a wild garden, sound installations, and a giant teddy bear sculpture The installation, the inaugural Courtyard Commission, will be on view for two years.
For the next two years, the courtyard at MoMA PS1 will play host to Precious Okoyomon’s playground of pleasures. The New York-based artist, known for their lush gardenscapes and cute-creepy stuffed animal sculptures, has planted a living forest in even in the balmiest of New York heat for “Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation,” their largest outdoor piece yet.
Taking place on a plush bed of 1,500 perennials and plants, the installation is a sensorial blend of blooms, sculpture, and sound, co-cultivated with Rhode Island nursery issima. Oppositional species — native and invasive plants — grow beside one another, with pollinators and butterflies abound, creating a scene that challenges ideas of what can cultivate together.
Okoyomon’s garden envisions life eternally in flux, inspired by philosopher Simone Weil’s concept of “decreation” — the constant making and unmaking of the world. As plants shift, seasons change, the space hones in on environmental and social realities of adaptation, resilience, and the unpredictable future of urban nature in shifting climates.
At the heart of the installation is “The Pleasure Principle,” a 25-foot-long sculpture. Visitors can climb into a teddy bear and listen to Okoyomon reading their poetry as they ride down a blood-red slide before exiting through its mouth. The adorable character is a recurring motif for the artist, often tied to idea(l)s of pleasure, while embodying the space between inner and outer worlds, à la Winnicott.
“Among the Flowers I Learned to Love: A Garden of Decreation” (2026) is now on view for free in New York, and marks the inaugural piece of the museum’s experimental Courtyard Commissions series. Check out PS1’s website for more details.
MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave,
Queens, NY 11101
