“Five Fathoms Deep” – crochet coral wall painting at Museum Frieder Burda, 2022.

In 2022, Museum Frieder Burda in Germany presented a museum-wide retrospective of the Crochet Coral Reef highlighting the project’s mathematical, scientific, and environmental dimensions. Titled Wert und Wandel der Korallen (Value and Transformation of Corals), the exhibition surveyed the 17-year history of this interdisciplinary, global, eco-artistic happening by turning the gallery into a submarine paradise. Along with the existing collection of crochet reefs by Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim, were several new sculptures by the Wertheim’s, including two delicate Nudibranch Reefs and a large-scale embroidered Sampler honoring the Reef project’s most dedicated contributors.

Also on display was a vast community-made reef constructed with the people of Germany and consisting of over 40,000 coral pieces. By far the largest crochet reef to date, this Baden-Baden Satellite Reef was a unique curatorial collaboration between the Wertheim sisters and 4000+ crocheters across the German speaking world. The resulting constellation of sculptures included six giant, three-dimensional coralline islands each composed from thousands of coral pieces, and a series of wall-sized coral “paintings” in which crochet pieces were employed like daubs of paint to create stunning two-dimensional reliefs. These powerful woolen tableaus simultaneously reference Claude Monet’s water-lilies, the painterly chaos of Jackson Pollock, and traditional communal quilt-making.

Exhibition Dates: January 29 – June 26, 2022
Location: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden Baden, Germany

The exhibition is accompanied by a 250 page full-color book, published in German and English.

Exhibition webpage + photo gallery:
Book webpage:

Buy Book Now at Artbook.com
Buy Book Now at Bookshop.com

Book cover “Margaret and Christine Wertheim: Value and Transformation of Corals” Weinand Verlag, 2022.

On September 30, 2022, IFF director Margaret Wertheim presented a talk at the International Forum on Consciousness at the BTC Institute in Madison WI. This year’s conference theme As Above, So Below, derives from the 19th century Swedish philosopher-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.

Wertheim’s talk, Concepts of Space and Concepts of Self, looked at how throughout Western history concepts of human self-hood have been entwined with ideas about the space in which we believe human beings are embedded. The presentation is based on her book The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet, a pioneering account of modern scientific conceptions of space and their consequent effects on our culture. Video of Ms Wertheim’s talk can be seen here:

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Other conference speakers: Jeffrey Kripal (Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University), John Donne (Professor of Religion at the University of Wisconsin, Madison), Sutton King (indigenous rights activist and creator of an indigenous health network in NYC), Paulo Roberto Silva da Souza (Brazillian ayahauska shaman), SoundMedicine pioneer Elizabeth Krasnoff, and Rosalind Watts (psychadelics researcher formally at Imperial College London). Panels moderated by Steve Paulson (host of NPR’s To The Best of Our Knowledge)

The International Forum on Consciousness is hosted by the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center Institute on the campus of the Promega bio-technical company.

Conference Brochure and Schedule:
Talk Abstracts:

See here for videos of all conference talks:

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Concepts of Space and Concepts of Self – Talk Abstract

On October 22, 2022, IFF director Margaret Wertheim gave a keynote address at the Swiss Biennial on Science, Technics + Aesthetics. This year’s conference theme was Rethinking Consciousness and the Mind.

Wertheim’s talk, titled The Problem of the Problem of Consciousness, looks at the history behind the concept ‘consciousness,’ and charts how this phenomenon came to be sees as a ‘problem’ that science could solve. The talk is based on her acclaimed essay in Aeon magazine “I Feel Therefore I Am.” Wertheim’s conference session is chaired by buddhist scholar Thupten Jinpa Langri.

Other conference speakers include neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor (My Stroke of Insight), physicist Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics), Tibetan buddhist Thupten Jinpa Langri (translator to the Dalai Lama), and philospher Manfred Folkers (All You Need is Less). Panel discussion moderated by Steve Paulson co-host of the NPR program To The Best Of Our Knowledge.

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Conference website:
Conference program:
Talk Abstracts and Speakers Bios: 

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Margaret’s Talk Outline: In contemporary neuroscience and philosophy ‘consciousness’ is conceived of as a phenomenological problem in need of an explanation. But how and why did it come to be seen as a “problem”? Medieval people did not sit around debating if we are conscious or how we came to be endowed with this quality. In their worldview, humans were beings were equipped with a soul, which ipso facto had the power to make moral and ethical decisions. Indeed, we were compelled to do so as part of our cosmic duty. With the rise of modern science, however, Western thinking re-worked humans into solely material beings, and psychological phenomena have ever-since been regarded—at least in scientific circles—as a secondary byproduct of the physical workings of the brain. But this deeply materialist position left out the issue of ‘consciousness’—our sense of our selves as distinct psychic entities with free will, feelings, and inner perceptions—what the Medievals called qualia (our apprehension of the redness of an apple or the taste of cinnamon). From the 1970’s on there has been a growing interest among neuroscientists, physicists, philosophers and humanists to make a theoretical home for consciousness. In this talk Wertheim will discuss ‘consciousness’ within an historical context by tracing how the term came to be used as a response to earlier histories of Western thinking about human ‘nature’. 

Inspirational image for Baden-Baden Satellite Reef, by Christine Wertheim.

In 2022, Museum Frieder Burda in Germany will present a museum-wide retrospective of the Crochet Coral Reef highlighting the project’s mathematical and scientific dimensions. Titled Wert und Wandel der Korallen (The Value and Transformation of Coral), the exhibition will survey the 17-year history of this interdisciplinary global happenning by turning the gallery into a submarine paradise. Along with the existing collection of crochet reefs, plus new works by artists Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim, the people of Germany are invited to participate in making nation-wide community reef. This Baden-Baden Satellite Reef will be a unique curatorial collaboration between the Wertheim sisters and German reefers inspired by the discovery of an ancient “pinnacle reef” in the remote Pacific Ocean east of the Great Barrier Reef. All participants will have their names included on the gallery walls and in the accompanying exhibition catalog. For inspirational images by the artists, and to participate in this reef, see here on the dedicated Crochet Coral Reef website.

Wert und Wandel der Korallen is curated by Udo Kittelman in collaboration with the Wertheims.

Location: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden Germany.
Exhibition dates: Jan 29 – June 26, 2022

Baden-Baden Satellite Reef: launched in Burda Style magazine
Crochet Coral Reef website: exhibitions page

On March 18, 2021, IFF director Margaret Wertheim will present a guest lecture about the Crochet Coral Reef as Material Fiction, for Dr. Molly Hand’s class on “Ecocriticism and Literature” at Florida State University.

Crochet Coral Reef as material science fiction

Wertheim will address the idea of the CCR project as a “material science fiction” and the interdisciplinarity of the project and her work more broadly at the interface of science and art. How does the project create a sensory and aesthetic experience, perhaps one that defies language and encourages a response and interaction beyond language? How do the crocheted Bleached Reef and Toxic Reef challenge our ideas about natural aesthetics through a “beautiful” invocation of ecological destruction? How does the CCR project intersect with questions about gender and how crochet and related handicrafts are generally associated with femininity? How might we think about gender with respect to the project as a response to environmental degradation? And how does the project operate as a participatory community experience that crosses socioeconomic and normative class lines?

Photo credit: Coral Forest at Lehigh University Art Galleries, image courtesy LUAG by Stephanie Veto.