ai weiwei to wrap roosevelt island’s modernist park in camouflage installation

Ai Weiwei set to land at four freedoms park

Ai Weiwei turns his attention to New York‘s Roosevelt Island with an upcoming installation that quietly unsettles the familiar landscape of Louis Kahn’s Four Freedoms Park. Announced as the inaugural project of the Art X Freedom program, Camouflage will stretch a canopy of netting across the park’s narrowest point, inviting visitors to consider what is hidden, what is revealed, and what must be protected.

The intervention at Roosevelt Island draws a line between the peaceful solemnity of Kahn’s granite geometry and the turbulent associations of camouflage. Using scaffolding to suspend netting over a bust of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the installation gestures toward both disguise and exposure, engaging with the four freedoms Roosevelt famously championed — speech, worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

‘Camouflage’ will open on Roosevelt Island in September 2025. Set against the Manhattan skyline, In response to the nation’s turbulent and discouraging political climate, the work will invite Americans to consider freedom not as a guarantee, but as a living question.

visualization courtesy the artist, Four Freedoms Park Conservancy

Animal Silhouettes woven into camouflage patterning

Ai Weiwei describes the Roosevelt Island installation as rooted in the double meaning of camouflage: a shield against harm, but also a tool for deception. The work becomes a lens to question which freedoms today are sheltered.

The artist adds an unexpected softness to the formal landscape of the park by embedding silhouettes of cats into the camouflage pattern. A tribute to the Wildlife Freedom Foundation’s nearby animal shelter, this detail shifts attention from the human-centered language of freedom to the silent suffering of animals during human-made crises, adding a quiet undertow of vulnerability to the piece.

The work marks the inaugural installation for the Art X Freedom program, a new initiative from the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy that will commission site-specific works interrogating justice, protection, and human rights. The quiet force of Weiwei’s approach suggests that these installations will not merely occupy the park, but engage it in an ongoing conversation.

Four Freedoms Park, image © designboom

a New Chapter for Public Art on Roosevelt Island

Ai Weiwei’s plans for Roosevelt Island include an interactive component: visitors will be invited to write reflections or hopes onto ribbons, tying them into the netting. This participatory element folds personal narratives into the larger fabric of the artwork, allowing the installation to breathe and change over time as new messages accumulate.

The choice of scaffolding and camouflage material resonates with the architectural rigor of Roosevelt Island’s Four Freedoms Park. Kahn’s monumental stonework provides a stage where the temporary, flexible structure of Camouflage can flicker against the permanence of the site, layering past and present into a shared space of reflection.

Ai Weiwei’s upcoming debut at Roosevelt Island follows a growing trend of art programming at Four Freedoms Park. In 2025, artist Cj Hendry drew crowds with her colorful Flower Market installation, which had to be relocated due to overwhelming attendance.

project info:

name: Camouflage

artist: Ai Weiwei | @aiww

location: Four Freedoms Park, Roosevelt Island, New York

presented by: Four Freedoms Park Conservancy | @4freedomspark

opening: September 2025

visualization: courtesy the artist, Four Freedoms Park Conservancy