20 Sheets with Blattodea Pheromone, 2008

With this edition, Santiago Sierra created a provocative intersection of conceptual art, institutional critique, and biological material. The work consists of twenty sheets of rag paper, each embedded with a test strip containing real cockroach pheromone – an invisible but potent chemical attractant. Sealed in sterile aluminum foil packaging and accompanied by a stark warning label, the edition confronts viewers with the discomforting possibility of biological intrusion. In typical Sierra fashion, the piece resists symbolic comfort and instead stages an experiment in power, control, and contamination. If opened in a space where cockroaches are present, the sheets will draw them out – making visible what is normally hidden and undesirable. The work’s latent threat is thus entirely context-dependent: inert in sterile settings, but disruptive in vulnerable ones. 20 Sheets with Blattodea Pheromone functions as both a conceptual trap and a social commentary – linking ideas of infestation, marginalisation, and the invisible systems that govern environments both human and institutional.