Love is the Natural Message. A Conversation with Precious Okoyomon by Gea Politi

This conversation took place on the occasion of the opening of the second iteration of the exhibition “Dance with Daemons,” at LUMA Arles.

Gea Politi: How hectic has your life become, Precious?
Precious Okoyomon: There are moments of structured slowness, but I’m actually good at being always in motion. Even when I was younger, we moved a lot – so, I think I’ve always been drawn to the idea of movement. Literally all the time, moving to different places. We lived in a lot of different houses. It’s very natural. To me, it’s not foreign.

GP: That’s why, probably since I’ve known you, you’ve moved how many times?
PO: I can’t be still in New York. I’m like, new house time, new apartment time. I miss Park Slope Food Coop. I never thought I would say that, but I do. I miss my shifts.

GP: I miss that cafe in Prospect Park — I feel you. So, what do you think has changed from the exhibition at Fondation Beyeler in Basel to the one at LUMA Arles? Are the vibe and the curatorial approach very different?
PO: The energy doesn’t change. You know what I mean? I think when we were thinking about the idea of dancing with demons or the demonic – and you can’t have a demon without the divine – then that energy of summoning, just that actual movement of time and space doesn’t change. Even if it takes a new form here, which I think it does, it still is wrapping everything, which is so beautiful. The fog is still taking over. Even my greenhouse has become a new form here. It’s more intimate, it’s tight. It’s a very one-on-one experience. And then you have the library — Dozie Kanu reimagined it in this way. The energy doesn’t shift, it just changes. And that’s the divine and the demonic together, the unconscious dream. Then you land in Carsten Höller’s bed.

GP: How do you perceive your work the sun eats her children (2023) when installed at LUMA, within the “Dance with Demons” context?
PO: It’s actually really personal because this piece stems from Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) – a reflection on how to hold love. How can you hold violence and love at the same time? How do you hold that? I’ve gotten really into audiobooks in my car. So I listened to all of Beloved in the last five months, which made me rethink the context of the shack where the violence happens, where Sethe, the main character, kills her daughter. And I thought, “Oh, I want to bring that intimacy of shrinking the greenhouse and putting it in this space.” It’s like transporting this memory that can’t be held even in the story. It’s not like it’s told, it’s untold. So I wanted to bring that fragment in so many ways, and I wanted to make it more personal here. It almost feels like it’s attacking you when you enter.

GP: Yeah, it feels that way. I kind of wanted to leave, also because it’s a solo experience, so you don’t know what is going to happen if you stay longer. Your work often involves plants, as an invasive or poisonous sort of subject. Does this focus on undesirable species and the idea of undesirable species reflect your philosophy or commentary on society?
PO: One hundred percent. I mean, they flow in and out with each other. The natural world mirrors our human world and there is no separation. Humanity has never been separated from nature, and that’s the miracle. I keep pointing that out, because the undesirable things are often invasive migrant weeds — plants we bring over, only to decide later that we don’t want them. They end up becoming nuisances, and that’s the paradox of invasives. It’s also why I love them. They’re miracles.

GP: You also described gardening as a collaborative process with nature. How has this approach to co-creation influenced your artistic practice beyond your work with plants?
PO: Luckily for me, it’s just how I see my relationships to the world – a co-creation. I think maybe it’s also my joy of spreading and learning from other people so deeply. My curiosity gets me in trouble. So I just want to play with as many people as possible. I want to go to people and learn. I want to be able to archive information. I want to get together and answer questions that we have. And then I need to meet the scientist. I need the physicist, then I need the land biologist. I just need things. I need people and I want to create conversations so questions can be answered and then we get to the truth of things.

GP: Has it always been like this? Have you always been working with this approach?
PO: I’ve kind of been like an intensely feral person my whole life. When I was a kid, my mom was like, “Stop.” I got in trouble all the time because I was unmanageable. And this constant collaboration with others was always there from the very beginning. I always wanted to play with other people, and I wanted to learn. I wanted to figure out things together. And I feel like that’s just such natural knowledge. It’s a feeling of knowing that’s inside of me, that’s always been innate. That’s how you find the truth — or even if there’s not even one truth. It’s multiple worlds. It’s multiple realities. It’s hundreds of ecologies. It’s how we play and melt through them.

GP: You mentioned before that humanity isn’t separate from nature. They co-exist. Also, they kind of hate and love each other constantly. How does this perspective shape your understanding of environmental issues and human responsibility?
PO: I mean, what’s so cool for me is that we create our own apocalypses and futures. Sometimes we forget that, and that takes away the responsibility. I think deeply about the force and the gravity of the universe and how we do choose our own future actively every day. And that is a practice: with each other, with strangers, with people — encounters continuously. It’s also the world that we participate in to live in very specific and continuous ways, and there is an undoing of that, but it just takes time and work in a different type of way. That’s what I’m really invested in.

GP: When did you start expressing yourself through poetry? Was it since the very beginning?
PO: It was kind of always. There’s a joke in my family that when I was really young you would get a poem from me, and I always wrote letters. I wrote letters to everyone in my family; I was very intense about it. I would fold them in envelopes, and you’d get a letter. It was a ritual. It was the way it must be done. It’s like I communicate through intensely long poems.

GP: How many are you in the family?
PO: It’s just me and my brother and my mom. So, everyone kind of let me go about my rituals in my own way, which really shaped me. But language is just the only way I understood the world from a very young age. And poetry just happened to be the only way I can translate that.

GP: So, then you kind of define poetry afterwards by writing actual poems?
PO: By writing actual poems and discovering it in that way. It just came innately out of how I understood to communicate with writing, because books were my escape. I spent a lot of time in libraries. My mom would just leave me at the library before going to work.

GP: Your work often explores relationships between plants, colonialism, and migration. Do you think viewers can reconsider their perspective on these topics through your work? Do you think some might need a shift in their thinking?
PO: It’s about feeling, which is fascinating. In the space I’ve created for the sun eats her children here at LUMA, it’s hot and filled with potentially deadly plants. For example, if you eat Datura flower, it can cause hallucinations for days.
At first glance, it seems like a beautiful garden with butterflies and healthy roses. But then you realize these flowers can kill you, and the butterflies are trapped in their utopia. It’s a subtle representation of violence – the everyday colonial violence that’s silent and creeping.
I’m trying to remind people that these violences aren’t just historical; they’re felt in our bodies daily. It’s a heaviness we carry. Can we hold that love and violence simultaneously? It’s ingrained within us, and there’s no easy escape. It requires a different way of seeing and moving through the world, which can be uncomfortable.

GP: I imagine things are different in New York compared to other places.
PO: Absolutely. New York is a bubble, but you still feel the violence in everyday life – rising costs, the city becoming less liveable. It’s different from visiting my mom in Ohio, where I grew up.

GP: How do you see the relationship between language and your visual installation work? How do they inform each other in your practice?
PO: I consider myself a poet first. My poetry expanded because language alone couldn’t contain my ideas, so I had to create physical spaces. Everything starts from a poem, then becomes an installation or object that allows you to feel the words I’ve written. The poem becomes the world, like a spell manifesting into reality.

GP: When did you begin transitioning from purely written poetry to creating art installations and immersive experiences?
PO: The shift began with my interest in gardening. After moving to New York, I spent considerable time at a community farm while dating a farmer. I became fascinated with composting and soil creation. This led to a collaborative exhibition with my friend Hannah Black at Real Fine Arts, featuring seeds and soil.
The experience of tending to a garden in East New York, observing beehives, and creating soil planted seeds of understanding within me. It connected me to my roots – my mother and grandmother both had gardens. Initially, gardening felt like work, but as I learned to create soil, it provided a sense of grounding in my new environment. This practice reshaped my perception of time and space in New York.
While I continued writing poetry and organizing reading series, this newfound connection to the earth significantly influenced my artistic direction.

GP: You’ve remained authentic to your vision without conforming to traditional art education or classification. Your work has opened eyes in often privileged circles while staying true to your roots. How important is this authenticity to you?
PO: Being rooted is crucial. From that foundation, growth occurs naturally. I’m grateful to recognize what moves me and to create from that place of love and inspiration. This authenticity flows into every aspect of my practice, whether it’s culinary collaborations with friends, gardening, or writing poetry.

GP: Your work seems to embody an abundance of love, something often lacking in contemporary society. Can you speak about that?
PO: Absolutely. I had the opportunity to teach at Columbia’s MFA program, taking over Rirkrit Tiravanija’s course, titled Making Without Objects. My approach was to recreate the type of education I valued – reading, studying, and open discussions. I emphasized the importance of play, love, and enjoyment in art-making. The class was fundamentally about loving, enjoying, and connecting with others. From there, students could discover what nourishes them and use that as the basis for creating art. It’s a beautifully simple concept.

GP: That simplicity is powerful. There’s a school of thought emphasizing collaborative art-making over solo work. How does this resonate with your practice, especially considering the various elements in your work?
PO: Even when creating solo work, I engage in extensive research. I love asking questions, learning, and growing. I approach each project with humility, ready to learn from specialists and professionals in various fields. It’s about being open to new knowledge and perspectives.

GP: That aligns with Aristotle’s philosophy of acknowledging one’s own ignorance. It’s about maintaining an open, welcoming mindset.
PO: Exactly. I strive to be an open field, both welcoming and receptive to new ideas and experiences.