During 2026/27, in an eponymously named exhibition, the Crochet Coral Reef is showing at MIT Museum.
Here, the Museum notes, visitors are “invited into a mesmerizing convergence of art, mathematics, marine science, and community participation, [as] the Crochet Coral Reef transforms fiber art into collective climate action.”
Crochet Coral Reef is the first in a series of exhibitions held as part of MIT Museum’s year-long OCEANS themed slate of events and programming. Accompanying the crocheted corals by sisters Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim and their worldwide collaborators, are several paper sculptures by MIT father-son mathematicians Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine. Both the Wertheims and Demaines explore hyperbolic geometric forms through materially embodied craft practices, using crochet in the former case and curved origami in the latter.
Exhibition Dates: Aug 14, 2026 – Feb 14, 2027.
Location: MIT Museum, Boston.
Showing from the Wertheim’s Crochet Coral Reef collection are several towering Coral Forest sculptures – 2 made of yarn, evoking the beauty of living reefs, and one composed from plastic, referencing the petro-encorcelled future into which we are rushing. At the other end of the scale is a series of miniature coral Pod Worlds, each a small vitrined universe displaying delicate pieces from the Crochet Reefs’ most skilled contributors. Rounding out the display is the Mathematics Blackboard with hand-drawn diagrams of the geometry underlying the project, inspired by the pioneering pedagogy of David Henderson and Daina Taimina.
And for the first-time ever in the USA: our giant coral ‘wall painting’ Five Fathoms Deep. Five Fathoms was created by the Wertheims in collaboration with Museum Frieder Burda in Baden Baden, along with 4,000 citizen-crafters across the German speaking world. At MIT, all 4,000 contributor names will be displayed within the gallery.
For more about the remarkable work of the Baden Baden ‘reefers’ see here.
The exhibition also serves as a springboard for a new collaboration between Margaret Wertheim and MIT mathematician Erik Demaine supported by a Fellowship from MIT’s Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST).
For more about Margaret’s CAST fellowship see here.
MIT Museum Credits:
Michael John Gorman, The Mark R. Epstein (Class of 1963) Director, MIT Museum
Ann Neumann, Curator and Artistic Advisor
Andrea Lipps, Writer
Emily Cheeseman, Project Manager
Rob Gainfort, Manager of Exhibitions
Tyler Derryberry, Museum Preparator, Media Integrator
Alexander Harrington, Preparator
Katie Porter, Registrar
Gavin Robinson, Collections Manager
MIT Museum gratefully acknowledges the Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) for grants that support interdisciplinary arts installations and programs.
The Institute For Figuring thanks OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH, Land Oberösterreich (Schlossmuseum Linz) for the loan of the Pod Worlds, x2 Coral Forests, and Mathematics Blackboard. These works have recently been acquired into the museum’s collection. We also thank Jorian Pollis Schutz for the loan of Coral Forest: Stheno from his collection.
