On Worlding

The type of art that could best be put in dialogue with my project is large scale sculpture and installations. There are many contemporary artists that work within this medium, using their exhibitions as a tool to connect the viewers to one another, or to nature/other living entities. One of my favorite artists that creates large scale installations is Precious Okoyomon, a young NYC based artist who wants to represent human’s ‘entanglement with nature’ in their site specific installations. They are interested in creating worlds that make one feel something. In their latest exhibition for the Venice Biennale, they included sculptures made of wool and dirt, kudzu and sugar cane plants, live butterflies, and small streams of water. They use the kudzu plant for many of their installations, which is an invasive vine species native to Asia but brought to the American South to fight the erosion of soil. It has become something akin to a weed there, something considered ‘hard to kill.’ Okoyomon cherishes the kudzu vine for this reason, as something that is resilient, comparing it to Blackness, taking root in a culture where it is put down and ‘othered.’

They consider their work to be a sort of imagining for a different collective future. In a time where the negative impact of climate change is becoming apparent, pessimistic and nihilistic feelings about the future can run rampant. Okoyomon seeks to imagine alternative futures, dreaming up the possibilities before it’s too late. They want to imbue the viewers of their work with positive feelings. When talking about their first exhibition in 2019, they said they wanted everyone that entered that space to be filled with “feelings of endless love.” In a time that is marked by an online culture of irony and insincerity, Precious Okoyomon’s work stands out as something that is forging a possibility for a new reality, filled with genuine connection between people. This is something that I want to bring into my work, for this project and in general. Designing public space can mean designing places for connection, spaces intended for the building of a collective future. It does not have to be mundane or boring, but infused with a bit of magic.