Tomás Saraceno
b. 1973, Argentina
Tomás Saraceno is an Argentina-born, Berlin-based artist and researcher whose projects dialogue with forms of life and life-forming, rethinking dominant threads of knowledge in the Capitalocene era and recognising how diverse modes of being reveal a multiplicity of meanings.
For more than two decades, Saraceno has activated projects aimed towards rethinking the co-creation of the atmosphere, including Museo Aero Solar (2007–) and the Aerocene Foundation (2015–), towards a society free from carbon emissions, for ecosocial justice.
Aerocene has floated over 8,000 minutes in the air free from carbon in 110 tethered flights, 15 free flights, and 8 human flights. The 2020 project Fly with Aerocene Pacha, stood in solidarity with the indigenous communities of Salinas Grandes, Jujuy and their protest against harmful lithium extraction practices in northern Argentina. With Aerocene, Pacha set 32 world records, marking the most sustainable flight in human history.
Arachnophilia, an interdisciplinary, research-driven community, also emerged from the artist’s more than 10 years of collaboration with humans, spiders, and their webs. With researchers at the TU Darmstadt, Saraceno developed the Spider/Web Scan, a novel, laser-supported tomographic technique that allowed precise 3-D models of complex spider/webs to be made for the first time, pursuing the unfolding of science through collaborations with world renowned institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Max Planck Institute. Nggàm dù, a web portal by the spider diviners of Somié, Cameroon, meditates on the possibilities of reciprocal, intercultural and inter- and intraspecies relations.
Saraceno’s work with local communities, scientific researchers, and institutions around the world, aims to seek out a more equal balance of human, techno and biodiversity, with the understanding that knowledge is produced from specific situations. He has held numerous residencies including MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (2012–), Atelier Calder (2010); published in Nature and PNAS; presented a TED talk; staged artistic interventions with COP20, COP21, and COP26; has lectured at Princeton, Columbia, Centre Pompidou, Davos, Hirshhorn Museum, CCK, among other locations; and received recognitions such as the Konex Platinum Award in Art and Technology (2022).
Saraceno has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, and permanent installations at museums and institutions internationally, including the Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania (2022); The Shed, New York (2022); Towada Art Center, Japan (2021); Carte Blanche at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018); Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires (2017); K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Ständehaus, Dusseldorf (2013); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); and Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2011), and is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Fundació Sorigué Fundación Hortensia Herrero, Arnault Collection, Boros Collection Fontanals-Cisneros, TBA 21 (Thyssen Bornemisza Collection), Espace Muraille Dragonfly Collection, Fundación Helga de Alvear, Foster Collection, Sammlung KiCo, Kupferstichkabinett Museum Berlin, and QAGOMA Brisbane, among others.
Saraceno has participated in numerous festivals and biennales, including the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale (2020) and the 53rd and 58th Venice Biennales (2009, 2019).