Tomás Saraceno in “Realms of the Real”

Version without descriptive audio available here.

Working out of his Berlin studio, artist Tomás Saraceno creates interactive installations, immersive architectural interventions, and participatory community projects that research how to best steward the planet and cohabitate with all its forms of life. In his practice, Saraceno engages with a wide variety of disciplines and specialists, collaborating with sociologists, architects, and entomologists, but also looks beyond human knowledge to learn from and work with arachnids, honeybees, and birds. Across interactive, human-sized webs and tactile works that demonstrate how spiders communicate and navigate, the artist prompts audiences to consider “more-than-human” ways of experiencing the world to instill a new sense of empathy and expand the scope of the possible. In one of his most ambitious participatory projects to date, the artist worked directly with the local Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Salinas Grandes to fly a technologically pioneering, fuel-free hot air balloon and, in turn, used the project’s visibility to advocate for the communities’ profound ecological concerns. This documentary short brings audiences into the bustling studio and expansive mind of an artist whose work extends far beyond the boundaries of contemporary art as he moves between disciplines, builds floating cities, and experiments in ecologically conscious flight. “It always starts with conversation, with dialogue, with inspiration,” says Saraceno.

This film was directed by Stephanie Wang-Breal, produced by Nan Sandle, edited by Colin Nusbaum, and photographed by James Fideler.