Artist Tomás Saraceno’s ‘Web(s) Of Life’ At Serpentine Gallery Asks Us To Rethink How We Coexist On This Earth

At the entrance to “Tomás Saraceno in Collaboration: Web[s] of Life,” we are politely asked to surrender our phones. There is no apparent judgment; instead, the act is more performative as our gadgets are safely slotted in what appears like an old wooden shelving unit and exchanged with an oracle card, “Arachnomancy Card,” with a personalized message (mine read: “planetary drift”). We are free, of course, to choose not to give away our phones. Yet it seems a missed opportunity: to truly immerse in the lively and layered world created by Tomás Saraceno for London’s Serpentine Galleries requires this small sacrifice.

Later, I reflect on what a relief it was not to reach out for my iPhone at every photo opportunity (and there are plenty), to be in the moment and absorb the chapters that unfold in each room and onto the surrounding Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. As Saraceno’s first major exhibition in the UK, “Web[s] of Life” takes on a lot. Ultimately it aims to observe how different life forms, technologies and energy systems are connected in the climate emergency. Art, for Saraceno, has active agency.

Born in 1973 in Argentina and trained originally as an architect, Saraceno is a multidisciplinary artist in its truest sense whose work is all about the interconnectedness across ecosystems. He has been working with spiders for over a decade, observing their ways through creating safe environments for these leggy creatures to weave their architectural delights. He says it’s about investigating ways of coexisting more positively with nature and weaving new threads of connectivity within our lives.

Visiting his Berlin studio a little while ago, I met with other artists, scientists, historians, philosophers, and a specialist in animal vibrational communication (as well as spiders of all species). Projects have often involved collaborating with experts outside the art world, including MIT Media Lab. At the Serpentine, Saraceno invited representatives from the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc ancient communities of Argentina, whom he has worked with for this exhibition, to join our conversation, with most of my interview time dedicated to their voices. The act alone speaks volumes about Saraceno’s approach to art.

“Web[s] of Life” involves multiple communities and experts and contains multiple artworks and experiences. There are outdoor sculptures made with animal specialists, indoor sculptures woven by spiders, a film installation showcasing the effect of mining and manufacturing on indigenous communities, educational playrooms for kids, props for dogs and cats and park wildlife — all of which are designed to invite us to consider different knowledge forms, and to learn from them.

In a darkened exhibition room, for instance, are a grouping of web sculptures. Inviting spiders to be the artist shifts our perception of who is the artist and who has the voice. Saraceno wants us to question, “Who is living at the Serpentine? How long have they lived on this earth? Who owns this planet” he tells me.

To make us even more aware of the sheer cost of energy, outside the gallery doors are stationary bicycles, inviting visitors to pedal away and help generate the energy needed to listen to an audio recording of “Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South.” Read by the scholar and art historian Manthia Diawara, it “rejects false solutions that come with new forms of energy colonialism, now in the name of a green transition.” Incidentally, a leisurely cycle, we are told, produces 60W of energy, while an intense one over 300W.

The two representatives from Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc — who are also involved with Aerocene, an environmental activist community founded by Saraceno — tell me how they are fighting to protect their lands against lithium extraction. Primarily driven by the demand for batteries for phones and electric cars, it pollutes their waters and destroys their livelihood. One speaks urgently of how companies send representatives to teach them alternative ways of living in what Saraceno mocks as the colonization of knowledge and education. These communities have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. I look at my iPhone, recording the interview, afresh.

Crucially for an exhibition dedicated to the environmental cause, “Web[s] of Life” tracks its own energy consumption. For its duration, the Serpentine will rely on solar power from panels newly installed on the gallery roof, air conditioning is turned off, and certain gallery spaces will remain dark if the sun doesn’t shine. Effectively, the show is alive, sleeping and awakening to the rhythm of nature. Saraceno tells me he hopes this will trigger a response in how visitors view their own personal life choices.

And it is a highly performative exhibition. The Serpentine has gone as far as to open its gallery space fully to the park, teasing nature to enter, asking all — visitors, park joggers and walkers and their pets, Londoners and tourists, sparrows and squirrels, foxes, bees and butterflies — to participate.

“Web[s] of Life” asks us to urgently rethink how we see ourselves as species, take a deeply critical look at our human-centric ways, and consider our interconnectivity to all other beings. And to learn from communities who have lived in deep harmony with nature for thousands of years.

I put it to Saraceno if he is using art to help make sense of the world. He simply replies, “Art is a tool to open dialogues; it offers the possibility to re-articulate and rethink. I’m not too concerned with the category itself, as sometimes I feel we are victims of this, of the scientists telling us this, the artists telling us that, but with no one being able to make a radical change in the way we should shift how we live.”

He takes a moment to reflect, then adds, “This is why we need to form alliances. We need these connections, which are incredibly beautiful: art, science, and indigenous communities vibrating together. We can learn from the spiders and their webs; how they coexist and are so respectful to one another. And we need to recognize that we are many on this planet that can help one another for a mode of living that is much more sustainable.”

Saraceno’s “Web[s] of Life” is a fully charged exhibition. It is performative, engaging, and entertaining but also urgent. It is a call to action, tasking us to confront the reality of our fragile environment, see the interconnected webs that have led to where we are now, and see our efforts and actions within this ecosystem. It also offers hope. So much hope for a better future. And it represents what art should and could be: inclusive, collaborative and a collective of ideas and solutions.

Sun begins to peak through the clouds as I leave the exhibition, powering, I imagine, gallery rooms otherwise left in the dark. I ditch original plans to catch a cab, turn off my phone and slip it in my bag, and walk back home, through Hyde Park and its glorious nature, past wildlife I can see and others in my imagination, and ponder on the way that a carefully considered and presented art can enhance and deepen your perception of reality and the possibilities of the world around you. Here was art speaking directly, not just to the viewers’ emotions, but to their understanding.

“Tomás Saraceno in Collaboration: Web[s] of Life” is at the Serpentine Galleries in London from June 1 to September 10, 2023.

For more on current art exhibitions: Cao Fei at Sprüth Magers, Isaac Julian at Tate Britain, Steve McQueen’s “Grenfell” at Serpentine Galleries, “Rites of Passage” at Gagosian London, and Leonardo Drew at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. See my previous interview with Tomás Saraceno at the Rolls-Royce Arts Program.