Marina Abramović's New York Installation Is a Snow Globe You Walk Into
A white room in the Tin Building in Lower Manhattan is filled to shoulder height with inflatable grass, and artificial snow swirls through the air above it. The work is Snowy / Windy / Spring on the Planet Z (2026), by Marina Abramović. It sits at the center of DAYDREAM, Air Becomes Art, the inaugural exhibition at the Balloon Museum's first permanent US flagship, which opened August 7, 2026, at 96 South St in the Seaport.
A planet from childhood
As a child, Abramović imagined a planet beyond our sky with its own weather and atmosphere, and wondered whether it was snowy there, or windy, or the first breath of spring. She called it Planet Z. The installation brings that planet into a room visitors share. They walk a curved white path through a field of tall green inflatable grass, many of them wearing headphones, inside a glowing white gallery.
The museum describes the work as her first sustained exploration of light, air and environment as a room-scale installation. Abramović calls the balloon a childhood object whose existence depends entirely on air, which she says places it close to performance, something that exists in the present and then is gone.
Air has always been central to her practice. In 1977 she and Ulay made Breathing In / Breathing Out, breathing only each other's exhaled air, mouths pressed together and nostrils blocked with cigarette filters, until they neared unconsciousness. Inflatable sculpture at this scale, she says, is entirely new to her. She takes it on as she enters her 80th year.
DAYDREAM, Air Becomes Art
Valentino Catricalà is the exhibition's curator. The museum describes its Tin Building site as the first permanent home for inflatable art. Alongside Abramović, the lineup includes OUCHHH, Martin Creed, Boris Acket, Rit.ai, Cyril Lancelin, Valerio Berruti, Alex Schweder, Onionlab, Daniel Wurtzel, Karina Smigla-Bobinski, Thom Kubli, Hyperstudio and Mauro Pace.
Martin Creed's Work No. 3966: Half The Air In A Given Space fills a space with balloons holding half of its air, and visitors wade in among them.
Alex Schweder's Our Breath, Her Joy is a giant mirrored ball whose fabric lungs rise and fall as it breathes.
In Boris Acket's There, Where I Am Absent, visitors lie beneath an overhead mirror under a single mechanical wing suspended from the ceiling.
Visiting
- Address: Tin Building, 96 South St, Seaport, New York, NY 10038.
- Hours: Open every day. Monday to Thursday 10am to 7pm, last entry 6pm. Friday 10am to 8pm and Saturday 9am to 8pm, last entry 7pm. Sunday 9am to 7pm, last entry 6pm. Hours change on holidays and school breaks, so check the online ticket calendar.
- Tickets: Adult tickets start at $39 Monday to Thursday, with prices varying by day and entry time. Children under 3 enter free. Tickets are sold online and at self-service kiosks on site. There is no traditional ticket office.
- Time needed: About 60 to 90 minutes.
- Latex: The balloons are made from liquid natural rubber latex. Visitors with latex allergies should tell staff on arrival.
- Getting there: Fulton Street station (2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, J, Z) is about a 10-minute walk. The M15 bus stops at South Street / Peck Slip.
