Client: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Project: Exhibition Design for Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden

Design: AMCP Studio

Curator: Gabrielle Niu

“Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden”

In collaboration with Ming Fay Studio and curator Gabrielle Niu, the exhibition “Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden” (Hostetter Gallery, Boston, June 26–September 21, 2025) reimagines the gallery as a living, breathing garden—one that echoes the spirit of the museum’s iconic courtyard. Designed over the course of two years, the exhibition draws inspiration from the outdoor garden to cultivate an interior landscape that reflects Ming Fay’s fantastical botanical imagination.

Our scenographic approach uses cork as a soft, earthy "soil" to ground the experience, inviting visitors to step into a world where nature is both familiar and surreal. At the heart of the installation, a secret tunnel leads into an immersive jungle vignette—showcasing Ming Fay’s lush, oversized plant forms in a dreamlike, subterranean realm. This transition between spaces deepens the sensory journey and evokes the layered ecologies of Ming’s work.

With Gabrielle Niu’s curatorial vision guiding the narrative, each sculptural scene—giant fruits, seeds, and hybrid flora—was carefully orchestrated in dialogue with Ming Fay Studio. The result is a poetic environment where memory, myth, and materiality intertwine—an invitation to wander, reflect, and rediscover the extraordinary within the everyday.

Photo credit: IIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum