Artist Paul Cocksedge’s new interactive sculpture at NCMA’s Museum Park invites visitors to sit, climb and gather on a 140-foot installation.
by Ayn-Monique Klahre | photography by Matt McConnell

If you haven’t been to the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park lately, it’s time to take a trip. A new installation by Paul Cocksedge called Please Be Seated was revealed here in June — and it’s calling for visitors to make it their own.

“I’m always looking for pieces like this, trying to find our next thing, and when I learned about Paul Cocksedge’s work, I thought, This is perfect for us,” says Linda Dougherty, the senior curator of contemporary art at the NCMA. “The underlying intent with all his work is to encourage social interaction in shared spaces.”

Please Be Seated is one in a series of works by the same name, though each is site-specific. Cocksedge visited the park to come up with a proposal that fit the NCMA’s landscape, then worked with local artisans Will Alphin, founder of REdesign.build, and Matt McConnell of McConnell Studios to manufacture and install the design under his direction.

While Alphin and his team prepared the site, McConnell and team created a complex mathematical model to work out the details of the design, down to the radius and placement of every screw hole in the pieces. “It’s the only way to ensure accuracy at scale — everything needs to fit exactly,” says McConnell. Agrees Alphin: “They had to match together because we were building them at the same time, we had to be in perfect alignment. Artwork of this scale takes a team.”

The two worked closely with Cocksedge to bring his design to life. “On a design project like this, it’s all about honest communication, making sure the designer loves the outcome,” says McConnell. “Paul is very detail-oriented, but we speak the same language.” One tweak they did make: the final piece is actually the mirror image of the one they set out to do. “Part of the museum’s mission is to make the whole park meet an ADA standard, and the existing slopes meant that the original design would not work,” says Alphin. “So we just flipped it.”

Alphin and McConnell then worked together to install the work on site. Designed as two intersecting curves that follow the topography of the hill, Please Be Seated is 140 feet long, with the tallest arch standing 10 feet high. “I love the flow of the work, the interactivities, the spaces that are created — it offers a beautiful connection between the Gyre and the amphitheater,” says McConnell.

Now, Please Be Seated lives naturally within the museum park, an invitation for folks to gather, meditate and communicate. “It’s a beautiful ribbon on the landscape. It’s intriguing to look at, but it’s not trying to be a mystery — it’s trying to be your friend,” says Alphin. “Inside the museum, you’re not allowed to touch. Please Be Seated is saying, sit on me, climb on me, walk on me.”

Even though the installation has only been up a short time, visitors have embraced it, says Dougherty. “The minute we opened it, people did exactly what we’d hoped: they leaned against it, took a nap or read a book. We saw kids jumping up and off the platforms and playing chase,” she says. “The public took ownership.”

This article originally appeared in the August 2026 issue of WALTER magazine.