| GHENT, NY — Art Omi will open its fall architecture season on Saturday, September 19, 2–5 PM, with two new commissions in its 120-acre Sculpture & Architecture Park: TAELON7: Limbo Engawa, designed by architect Juergen Benson-Strohmayer, and Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample: A Dome with Four Oculi, by the studio MOS. The free, all-ages opening brings newly commissioned, site-responsive work by two architecture practices into conversation across the park, and includes three live musical performances inside the new dome.
The afternoon opens at 2 PM with Limbo Engawa, followed at 3 PM by A Dome with Four Oculi, where the musical program will take place.
Opening at 2 PM
Art Omi and Limbo Museum jointly present Limbo Engawa, a two-part site-specific installation by TAELON7, led by architect Juergen Benson-Strohmayer. Conceived as a cross-continental commission between the two institutions, the project was first presented at Limbo Museum in Accra on March 12, 2026, before traveling to Art Omi’s Sculpture & Architecture Park in New York’s Hudson Valley, where it will open on September 19, 2026. Across its two presentations, Limbo Engawa considers how architecture can create spaces for gathering, exchange, and collective experience across radically different geographic and cultural contexts.
The work takes its name from the Japanese term engawa, describing transitional zones between interior and exterior, private and communal space. In the contemporary urban context of Accra, Limbo Engawa interprets this concept through human-scaled interventions that mediate between large, unfinished structures and the active cultivation of the land around them.
The installation features modular, lightweight components that can be carried and assembled on site. Oversized daybeds, inspired by woven beds commonly used within unfinished buildings, provide shade, filtered views, and spaces for sitting or lying down, fostering interaction among farmers, caretakers, and museum visitors. Materials include steel profiles and salvaged billboard strips woven into frames, blending local construction techniques with sustainable, adaptable design strategies.
Crossing the Atlantic: Limbo Museum Arrives in New York
In Fall 2026, Limbo Engawa travels to Art Omi in Ghent, New York, marking Limbo Museum’s institutional debut in the United States.
At Art Omi, the project undergoes a second architectural transformation. Detached from a host structure, Limbo Engawa becomes a freestanding landscape pavilion. Installed within Art Omi’s open fields, it frames horizon, weather, and seasonal change, creating a shaded gathering space that resonates differently within a rural American context. Together, the installations in Accra and Upstate New York operate as parallel yet distinct interpretations of engawa.
ABOUT JUERGEN BENSON-STROHMAYER
Juergen Benson-Strohmayer is a chartered architect in Austria and Ghana and the founder of TAELON7. Over the past decade he has lived and worked across Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Austria, developing a body of work that moves between architecture, research, and making. His projects have been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Austrian Gallery Belvedere, Shibaura House Tokyo, and MAGAZIN Vienna, and recognized with awards such as the Holcim Gold Award for Sustainable Construction and the Fassa Bortolo Silver Medal. Alongside practice, he has taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture and contributed to institutions including the African Futures Institute and Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture
Support for Limbo Engawa is provided in part by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Accra. |
