Mikala Dwyer – The Divisions, Subtractions and Additions: Séance for the Spiderworms, 2026

Séance for the Spiderworms summons the ghosts of Lyon’s silk trade and the interspecies economies that have sustained it. The circular form of the gathering echoes the life cycle of the silkworm and its genetically engineered counterpart, the spiderworm. This was bred to produce the fibre known as spidersilk, prized for its strength and elasticity. For Mikala Dwyer, the circle is a form that is never entirely open or closed; the boundary between inside and outside remains forever negotiable. Drawing on occult traditions that seek to communicate with the dead, she conceives the circular installation as a séance in which the labour of all those who have kept Lyon’s silk industry alive – whether human or other-thanhuman – can be acknowledged. As Dwyer observes, séances may be occasions where “people expect chairs to fly”, when in fact they require something else entirely: “to sit there, shut up and listen”

Mikala Dwyer explores notions of ritual, transformation, and the circulation of energy between objects, bodies and environments. Her practice examines systems of value and exchange, using modest or discarded materials to question how meaning is assigned, altered and sustained within both economic and symbolic frameworks.