Catalogue Terraphilia. Beyond the Human in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections

Terraphilia explores how diverse cosmologies—mythical, spiritual, scientific, and ecological—shape our understanding of the Earth and our entanglement within it. The exhibition traces world-making practices across time, foregrounding relational ontologies, animist perspectives, dream knowledge, earthliness, and oceanic imaginaries, alongside decolonial strategies that challenge hierarchies between humans, nonhumans, and the more-than-human. Mobilizing art as a site of encounter and transformation, Terraphilia proposes love as both method and force—a planetary ethic rooted in affect, responsibility, and kinship—to reimagine how we live, think, and create together on a damaged Earth.

Extending this cosmopolitical inquiry, the accompanying publication functions not only as an exhibition catalogue but also as a reader, bringing together a constellation of voices from Amerindian perspectivism, trans*feminism, decolonial ecologies, the history of science, critical thinking, and political theory. It offers a layered framework for rethinking planetary life, proposing a generative ground for speculation, resistance, and re-worlding.

The volume features newly commissioned texts alongside seminal essays translated into Spanish for the first time. Contributors include Báyò Akómoláfé, Marisol de la Cadena, Lorraine Daston, Malcolm Ferdinand, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Ayrson Heráclito, Eva Hayward with Ingo Niermann, Michael Marder, Álex Martín Rod, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh, John Tresch, Sissel Tolaas, and Daniela Zyman. Their contributions move between philosophy and poetics, myth and method, affect and politics—charting speculative and grounded ways of living with and learning from the Earth.

Through its multidimensional lens, the publication invites readers to engage with the dynamic corpus of ideas and perspectives that both illuminate and complicate contemporary debates on ecology, extractivism, and planetary justice. Terraphilia encourages an open-ended and relational approach to knowledge—one that embraces complexity, uncertainty, and plurality. It explores how love for the Earth can take the form of intellectual inquiry, poetic speculation, and political responsibility, activating modes of care that are at once philosophical and embodied. As such, the book becomes a generative companion—an invitation to reimagine how to think, feel, and act in and with the world, and to take part in the ongoing labor of worldmaking.

Texts by:

Báyò Akómoláfé, Marisol de la Cadena, Lorraine Daston, Malcolm Ferdinand, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Ayrson Heráclito, Eva Hayward with Ingo Niermann, Michael Marder, Álex Martín Rod, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh, John Tresch, Sissel Tolaas, Daniela Zyman.  

With forewords by: Ernest Urtasun (Ministry of Culture), Guilermo Solana (Artistic Director Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza), Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza (Founder and President TBA21).

Artists:

Etel Adnan, Hans Baldung Grien, Albert Bierstadt, Willem Jansz. Blaeu (workshop), John Bock, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Arthur Boyd, Georges Braque, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Charles Ephraim Burchfield, David Burliuk, Frederic Edwin Church, Tiago Carneiro Da Cunha, Thomas Cole, Salvador Dalí, Edgar Degas, Diego Delas, Mark Dion, Olafur Eliasson, Elyla, Tracey Emin, Max Ernst, Domenico Fetti, Caspar David Friedrich, Vincent van Gogh, Natalia Goncharova, Francisco de Goya, Petrit Halilaj, John Martin Heade, Ayrson Heráclito, Jan Jansz. van der Heyden, Carsten Höller, Melchior de Hondecoeter, Rashid Johnson, Brad Kahlhamer, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Dr. Lakra, Sarah Lucas, Roberto Matta, Ana Mendieta, Regina de Miguel, Asunción Molinos Gordo, Gustave Moreau, Eduardo Navarro, Emil Nolde, Josèfa Ntjam, Georgia O’Keeffe, Daniel Otero Torres, Joachim Patinir, Frans Jansz. Post, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Auguste Rodin, Rachel Rose, Thomas Ruff, Roelandt Savery, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Akeem Smith with Jessi Reaves, Vivian Suter, Yves Tanguy, Sissel Tolaas, Charwei Tsai, Janaina Tschäpe, Mark Tobey, Rubem Valentim, Jan Wellens de Cock, Susanne Winterling, Hervé Yamguen, Inês Zenha.

Edited by:

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2025

Softcover, 16,5 x 24 cm
Spanish-English, 248 pages
Edited by Álex Martín Rod and Daniela Zyman 
Book design by T.O.T Studio [Ana Castro, Victor Navarro]
ISBN 979-13-87729-04-2