Part of the programme at Frieze New York 2025, Asad Raza’s Immortal Coil is a new participatory installation created in collaboration with High Line Art and Frieze. The work incorporates seedlings, cuttings and clippings from plants found on the High Line, selected with guidance from Richard Hayden, the High Line’s senior director of horticulture. Built in the 1930s as an elevated section of the New York Central Railroad’s West Side Line, the High Line sat derelict from the 1980s until it was developed into a unique public park in the 2000s.
The selected plant seedlings and cuttings will greet visitors as they enter the Shed, and will be open to view by the public. On the morning of Saturday 10 May, participants who sign up in advance will be given a plant and invited to walk the length of the High Line with it. At the end of the walk, they will be encouraged to take their plant home, creating a lasting and living connection between the city, the installation and those taking part in the work. Raza has also invited musician and artist Kelsey Lu to compose original music for the plants, and environmental writer Zoë Schlanger to give a lecture. Immortal Coil focuses on the endless generation of plant life, through sunlight and soil, and reproduces the High Line’s plantings on a miniature scale, distributed to the people of New York City.
The entirety of the walk will last 45 minutes.
Meeting location and time will be communicated closer to the event date.
Sign up to take part in Immortal Coil on 10 May.