Unlimited Sector Opening: June 15, 2026 | 4 – 8 PM
VIP Days: June 16 – 17, 2026 | 11 AM – 8 PM
Vernissage: June 17, 2026 | 4 – 8 PM
On View: June 18 – June 21, 2026
June 3, 2026 (Basel, Switzerland) – SOCIÉTÉ is pleased to announce Mariposita, an immersive sculptural installation by Timur Si-Qin for Art Basel Unlimited, on view from June 18 – June 21, 2026.
A German-born artist of Mongolian-Chinese descent, Si-Qin works across sculpture, moving image, and installation to imagine new spiritual protocols for relating to the living world in the face of climate change and biodiversity collapse. Mariposita inaugurates a new body of works engaging with the Peruvian Amazon, which will be exhibited at SOCIÉTÉ in November 2026. The work takes its title from the Spanish word for “little butterfly,” and from the blue morpho butterflies, among other species, that Si-Qin encountered during periods of isolation deep in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. Based on 3D scans made by the artist of a Renaco tree and its surrounding pond ecosystem, the installation translates buttress roots, insects, water, plant matter, and reflected light into stainless steel and moving image. Reproduced at a 1:1 scale, it spans 4.4 by 4.2 meters across the floor and rises to 2.2 meters in height, presenting a pristine fragment of a living tree and its ecosystem at full scale. Through its combination of sculptural and moving-image elements, the work creates a space of heightened attention in which technological reproduction becomes a devotional act: a form of mirroring, naming, and reminding viewers that such environments still exist, even as their existence is increasingly threatened.
Unlike traditional casting methods, which would require harvesting and killing the tree, Si-Qin’s 3D scanning process documents the Renaco and its ecosystem without physical harm. The scans are then 3D printed in segments in castable resin before being welded, finished, sandblasted, and polished, resulting in a translation that is at once technologically precise and ethically grounded. Despite using cutting-edge technologies to create his works, Si-Qin’s focus is on nature itself. “I’ve always felt that my work has been misinterpreted as being about technology. It has always been about nature,” Si-Qin has said. “I don’t see technology as a separate ontological category. Since we’ve made cave paintings we‘ve been using technology to make art. It’s simply what’s available.”
Si-Qin’s engagement with trees as subjects of devotional attention has been central to his practice for several years, rooted in the conviction that the displacement of nature from the center of Western spiritual life is inseparable from the environmental crisis we now face. His monumental commission Sacred Footprint (2024), permanently installed in the atrium of Meta’s New York headquarters, synthesized 3D scans of multiple tree species from the Catskills and Adirondacks into a single 50-foot suspended form in stainless steel and aluminum. Mariposita marks a significant shift in this ongoing inquiry: where Sacred Footprint draws multiple trees to construct a universal symbol, Mariposita is rooted in a single, specific encounter: one tree, one pond, one ecosystem, which the artist experienced during periods of extended isolation deep in the Peruvian Amazon.
For Si-Qin, Mariposita is a meditation on the concept of the pristine. For most people in contemporary societies, truly wild places are rarely, if ever, experienced. The pristine names an encounter with living worlds so intact, vivid, interdependent, and self-generating that they can feel almost impossible from within contemporary life. As direct experiences of such ecosystems become increasingly rare, images of the pristine are often dismissed as fantastical, romantic, or merely aspirational. Yet this apparent unreality reveals how distant modern culture has become from the living systems that sustain it.
“I‘m always trying to go towards the most realistic depiction of nature because I think nature is herself the most radical,” Si-Qin explains, “For me, the process of seeing nature and trying to depict it is a meditative and devotional practice in itself.” In Mariposita, this devotional act of mirroring is both an artistic method and an ecological ethic: a gesture toward the forest spirits of the Ucayali, the fragile worlds threatened by extraction and deforestation, and the possibility of learning to walk differently within the living fabric of the earth.
This project was realized in collaboration with Magician Space and the Sigg Art Foundation.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Address
Messe Basel
Messeplatz 10
4058 Basel
Switzerland
Opening Hours
Unlimited Sector Opening
Monday, June 15, 2026 | 4 – 8 PM, First Choice
Monday, June 15, 2026 | 6 – 8 PM, Preview
VIP Day
Tuesday, June 16, 2026 | 11 AM – 4 PM, First Choice
Tuesday, June 16, 2026 | 4 – 8 PM, First Choice, Preview
Wednesday, June 17, 2026 | 11 AM – 8 PM, First Choice, Preview, One Day VIP & Two Day VIP
Vernissage
Wednesday, June 17, 2026 | 4 – 8 PM, VIP Card and Ticket Holders
Public Days
Thursday, June 18, 2026 | 11 AM – 7 PM, VIP Card and Ticket Holders
Thursday, June 18, 2026 | 7 – 11 PM, Unlimited Night Ticket Holders
Friday, June 19, 2026 | 11 AM – 7 PM
Saturday, June 20, 2026 | 11 AM – 7 PM
Sunday, June 21, 2026 | 11 AM – 7 PM
VIP Hour for Unlimited Sector, Hall 1
Thursday, June 18, 2026 | 10 – 11 AM
Friday, June 19, 2026 | 10 – 11 AM
Saturday, June 20, 2026 | 10 – 11 AM
Sunday, June 21, 2026 | 10 – 11 AM
About Timur Si-Qin:
Timur Si-Qin (b. 1984, Germany) is a New York-based artist of German and Mongolian-Chinese descent who grew up in Berlin, Beijing, and in the American Southwest. Si-Qin was recently featured in the exhibition Science/Fiction — A Non-History of Plants at Foto Arsenal Wien, which travelled from MEP, Paris. His work has been extensively shown in solo exhibitions in Europe, the United States, and Asia, and was included in exhibitions at The High Line, New York; Schirn, Frankfurt; K11 Art, Shanghai; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; Ullens Contemporary Art Center, Beijing; The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; and Kunsthalle Wien, among many others. He has participated in large-scale international exhibitions such as the Bangkok Art Biennale, Bangkok; Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennial, Saudi Arabia; Kunsttriennale Beaufort, Belgium; Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Latvia; Ural Biennale, Russia; 9th Berlin Biennale, Germany; and Taipei Biennial.
About SOCIÉTÉ:
SOCIÉTÉ is a Berlin-based contemporary art gallery with a global reach. The gallery’s bold curatorial approach plays a pivotal role in advancing its artists’ visions, supporting major museum exhibitions, biennials, and acquisitions by leading institutional collections worldwide. Operating in both the primary and secondary markets, SOCIÉTÉ provides curated advisory services to select clients.
Beyond its exhibitions, the gallery’s publishing initiative, EDITION SOCIÉTÉ, collaborates with prominent writers and graphic designers to produce artist books, catalogues, and, more recently, high-end artist editions.
SOCIÉTÉ is an active presence at major international art fairs, including Art Basel, Art Basel Paris, Art Basel Miami Beach, Frieze New York, Frieze London, ARCOmadrid, and Gallery Weekend Berlin.
Image Credits:
1. Timur Si-Qin, Mariposita, 2026. Stainless steel, LED screen. 220 x 440 x 420 cm. Courtesy of the artist and SOCIÉTÉ, Berlin.
2. Timur Si-Qin, Mariposita, 2026 (detail). Stainless steel, LED screen. 220 x 440 x 420 cm. Courtesy of the artist and SOCIÉTÉ, Berlin.