Nomad Studio: Green Air at St. Louis

Green Air is an aerial garden of Tillandsias suspended from the courtyard’s canopy at the Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis.

Designed by New York–based Nomad Studio, Green Air is the second major, transformational installation in CAM’s courtyard. Consisting of thousands of slices of wood suspended from the courtyard’s canopy with Tillandsia air plants such as Spanish moss attached to each, the undulating sculpture hangs above the heads of visitors, swaying in the breeze and filling the 45-by-50-foot space.

Headed by William E. Roberts and Laura Santín, landscape architecture firm Nomad Studio is known for combining contemporary art and design with natural elements. Green Air is the second work in a two-year commission made possible by an Innovation Fund grant by the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission and follows Nomad’s previous installation, Green Varnish (on view in the Museum’s courtyard, from May until September 2015). The new work re-uses the wood that formed the armature of the original sculpture and re-envisions its curving, wave-like shape.