July 1, 2026
Ten years ago this month, David Brenner’s “The Living Wall” came to life at SFMOMA.
See archival photos from the 2016 installation below.
“The Living Wall” is a multi-sensory experience. Designed to capture the essence of a Northern California forest floor, it immerses visitors in a richly layered composition of texture, movement, and seasonal change. Orange-tinged huckleberry tips, pink flowering currant, and campanula provide bursts of color among a sea of green. Leaves flutter in the breeze, bees and butterflies move among the blooms, and the wall comes alive with subtle movement and sound.
A decade later, “The Living Wall” continues to evolve. As both sculpture and garden, with nature itself as the medium, the work is never static or experienced the same way twice.
Here’s to many more years of inviting visitors to slow down, tune into nature, and reconnect with the living world them.
