Can Art Shape an Ecological Future? Tomás Saraceno Thinks It Already Is

Few contemporary artists have dissolved the boundaries between art, science, architecture, and activism as consistently as Argentine-born artist Tomás Saraceno. For more than two decades, his practice has questioned how humans inhabit the planet, proposing alternative relationships between species, technologies, and the atmosphere itself. This summer, Haus der Kunst in Munich presents the artist’s most expansive exhibition to date, “Tomás Saraceno in Collaboration: Ancestral Futures,” on view from July 17 through February 7, 2027.

Continuing the institution’s commitment to presenting multidisciplinary artistic practices, the exhibition examines ecological transition not as a technological challenge alone, but as a cultural, social, and philosophical one. Rather than treating nature as a landscape or a backdrop, Saraceno understands it as a living network of relationships, in which art becomes a medium for imagining new forms of coexistence.

Art Beyond the Museum

The exhibition unfolds around two of Saraceno’s long-term research platforms—Aerocene and Arachnophilia—alongside a newly commissioned permanent land artwork, El Santuario del Agua (The Sanctuary of Water). Developed in collaboration with the Indigenous communities of the Red Atacama in Argentina’s Salinas Grandes, the project extends far beyond the exhibition itself, functioning simultaneously as sculpture, ecological intervention, and social infrastructure.

Throughout Haus der Kunst, visitors encounter floating air-powered sculptures, immersive environments, and multispecies habitats that transform the museum into an ecosystem rather than a traditional exhibition space. Air, sunlight, water, and living organisms become both artistic materials and collaborators, reflecting Saraceno’s long-standing interest in decentralizing the role of the human creator.

This approach recalls historical moments when artists sought to expand sculpture beyond the object. Yet where many twentieth-century interventions asserted artistic control over nature, Saraceno instead advocates for collaboration with ecological systems themselves.

Aerocene and New Ecological Imaginaries

At the center of the exhibition is Aerocene, the international initiative Saraceno launched in 2015 to imagine emission-free forms of mobility. Rejecting fossil fuels altogether, Aerocene sculptures harness only air currents, solar radiation, and infrared energy to achieve flight.

The exhibition revisits Aerocene Pacha, 2020, the historic balloon flight that established 32 world records after becoming the first certified human flight powered exclusively by the sun and atmospheric conditions. Rather than celebrating technological conquest, the project proposes flight as an ecological dialogue—one that responds to planetary systems instead of dominating them.

These aerial sculptures function as speculative architectural forms, inviting viewers to reconsider movement, infrastructure, and the politics of energy through poetic rather than industrial means.

Learning from Spiders

Equally central is Arachnophilia, Saraceno’s ongoing investigation into spiders as architects, communicators, and collaborators. Through studies of web structures, vibration, and acoustic communication, the project explores how intelligence and design exist across species.

Rather than treating spiders as scientific subjects, Saraceno positions them as co-authors of aesthetic and spatial knowledge. Their webs become intricate models of interconnectedness, challenging anthropocentric assumptions about creativity and authorship.

New artworks presented in Munich continue this research while further expanding collaborations with the Aerocene Foundation and international scientific communities.

As Andrea Lissoni, Artistic Director of Haus der Kunst, notes: “With Saraceno, the building has become a space to engage with ecological and social questions that extend beyond the exhibition itself.”

Land Art as Living Infrastructure

Perhaps the exhibition’s most significant contribution lies outside the museum altogether.

The Sanctuary of Water, currently under construction in northern Argentina, was developed through years of collaboration with the Red Atacama, an alliance of Indigenous communities working to protect ancestral territories threatened by lithium extraction. Employing traditional Andean building methods, the land art functions simultaneously as environmental infrastructure, cultural preservation, and public artwork.

Unlike early examples of twentieth-century Land Art—which often transformed remote landscapes through monumental artistic gestures—Saraceno’s intervention is intended to belong to the communities who conceived it alongside him. Once completed, the sanctuary will help protect fragile saltwater ecosystems from contamination and evaporation while supporting ecotourism and generating economic opportunities for residents.

In this sense, the artwork shifts the definition of sculpture from representation to stewardship.

Ecology as Collective Knowledge

Tomás Saraceno frequently cites Brazilian philosopher Ailton Krenak, whose writings reject the notion of the future as something humanity must invent. Instead, Krenak argues that many answers already exist within ancestral ecological knowledge—if we choose to listen.

That philosophy permeates “Ancestral Futures.” Rather than presenting sustainability as innovation alone, the exhibition argues for recovering systems of care that have long existed outside dominant Western narratives of progress.

This perspective also informs works such as Museo Aero Solar, 2022, a continually evolving sculpture collectively assembled from discarded plastic bags by communities across six continents. Never complete or fixed, the work embodies Saraceno’s understanding of art as an ongoing social process rather than a finished object.

A Museum Without Walls

The exhibition extends into the surrounding landscape through the newly created Community Garden Ostwiese and “Cloud Cities: Species of Spaces,” 2023–2026, installed on the museum’s terrace overlooking the Eisbach River.

Public workshops throughout the exhibition invite visitors to construct components for Museo Aero Solar, culminating in a collective attempt to launch one of the solar-powered sculptures into the atmosphere later this fall. Participation becomes inseparable from the work itself, reinforcing Saraceno’s belief that ecological transformation depends upon collective action rather than individual authorship.

Ultimately, Tomás Saraceno asks viewers to reconsider not only humanity’s relationship with nature but also the role museums might play within ecological systems. Here, art is no longer confined to representation or aesthetic contemplation. Instead, it becomes a form of research, environmental care, and shared responsibility—suggesting that the future of artistic practice may lie as much in collaboration and stewardship as in the creation of objects.