Tomás Saraceno’s exhibition Ancestral Futures brings together two central strands of the artist’s long-term research — Aerocene and Arachnophilia — alongside a new co-commission developed in close collaboration with the 11 Indigenous Commu­ni­ties of Red Atacama, Salinas Grandes, in northern Argentina. Their ongoing struggle against lithium extraction, and the pressure it places on the region’s water cycles, becomes the starting point for an artwork that reaches beyond the exhibition space.

At Haus der Kunst, these ideas materialise in air-fuelled sculptures, shared multispecies habitats, and spatial environments that invite new forms of attention. Together, these works create a platform for rethinking forms of coexistence across human and non-human worlds. They also open a wider dialogue about the ecological and social forces shaping the global energy transition.

With many collaborators that shape the installations and learning programme, the exhibition transforms the building into a space for planetary attunement. It is an invitation to inhabit the museum differently. In dialogue with other programmes, this exhibition highlights new ways of sensing, imagining, and living within the entangled systems that sustain us.