A monumental earthwork shaped like an oyster shell opened on July 30, 2026, on Governors Island in New York Harbour, inviting visitors to walk through it, sit on it, and reckon with the land beneath their feet.

The sculpture, called "The Oyster," is the work of Alan Michelson, a Mohawk artist from Six Nations of the Grand River, a reserve in Ontario, Canada. It is described as a contemporary Indigenous geoglyph — a geoglyph being a large-scale design made on the ground, a form with roots stretching from Peru's Nazca Lines to ancient British hill figures. Michelson's version is filled with shells and sized for people to move through. A ground mural component was painted with help from the public, according to a March 2026 Instagram post by More Art, the non-profit that commissioned the work More Art via Instagram.

"The Oyster" was commissioned by More Art in partnership with the Billion Oyster Project, a New York Harbour restoration initiative, and Governors Island Arts. It is part of "Reframing 1776: Land, Water, and the Work of Repair," a More Art programme tied to the 250th anniversary of US independence. Micaela Martegani, More Art's executive director and chief curator, leads the initiative The Art Newspaper. The work runs through November 30, 2026, closing out the 2026 Governors Island Arts season.

Governors Island, a 172-acre former military base in the middle of the harbour, has become a seasonal hub for public art and climate-focused programming. This summer, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) ran free Saturday Climate Art Workshops at its Arts Center on the island throughout summer 2026, alongside an exhibition by painter Leslie Wayne.

Wayne's exhibition, "The Unintended Blues," documents rising sea levels and is on view in the Upper Gallery at the Arts Center. It is presented by LMCC, which offered free public programming from May through September 2026. Wayne was also scheduled to appear on a World Oceans Day panel at the NY Climate Exchange on June 8, alongside Anthony Aiu, co-founder of Te Ao Mana, an Indigenous Pacific arts organisation NY Climate Exchange.

What makes the Governors Island season stand out is how naturally the art and the environmental programming sit together. An oyster shell made of earth, planted on an island shaped by dredging and landfill, sits a short walk from a gallery exhibition about rising tides. Neither shouts at the other. The visitor does the joining up.

Michelson's sculpture taps into a deeper history, too. Oysters once blanketed New York Harbour's floor — the Lenape, the Indigenous people of the region, harvested them for thousands of years before Dutch colonisation in the seventeenth century. The Billion Oyster Project, one of More Art's partners on the commission, has spent over a decade working to restore the harbour's oyster reefs, which filter water and buffer shorelines against storm surges.

The free ferry to Governors Island runs daily from Lower Manhattan. "The Oyster" is the kind of work that asks to be stood inside, not just looked at.