Web-weaving spiders will always, instinctively, begin a process of weaving in order to sense the world (and other spiders) around them. Providing them with an open frame is rendered as an invitation to initiate such practice—that is, should they cross its path and find its geometry appealing. When the accepting spider then freely leaves the frame, other spiders may decide to inhabit it after, weaving around the corners and edges of the frame, but also the spider/web formation left behind if it remains in good health and condition. In turn, each connection made between the different typologies of spider/web reveal a synaptic narrative and lesson for living together.

The art works not only draw attention to the hybrid structures of cohabitation that spiders have woven for millenia—outside a Western gaze—but in turn recognize those spider/webs who did not arrive by invitation. The so-called traces left behind by a spider, their webs actively removed from spaces as a result of a monocultural arachnophobia, are directly highlighted for the complexities they exhibit—moving its viewers from arachnophobia to Arachnophilia.

Argentina-born, Berlin-based Tomás Saraceno creates projects which focus on a dialogue between forms of life and life-forming, rethinking dominant threads of knowledge in the Capitalocene era and recognizing how diverse modes of being engage a multiplicity of vibrations on the Web of Life.

For more than two decades, Saraceno has activated projects aimed towards fossil-fuel free futures, including Museo Aero Solar (2007–) and the Aerocene Foundation (2015–). Arachnophilia, an interdisciplinary, research-driven community, also emerged from the artist’s more than 10 years of collaboration with humans, spiders, and their webs.

He has held numerous residencies including MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (2012 – ) and Atelier Calder (2010); published in Nature and PNAS; presented a TED talk; staged artistic interventions with COP20, COP21, and COP26; has lectured internationally. He has also been the subject of solo exhibitions and permanent installations at museums and institutions internationally, including The Shed, New York (2022); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018); Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos. Saraceno has participated in numerous festivals and biennales, including the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale (2020) and the 53rd and 58th Venice Biennales (2009, 2019).