Feral Metaverse (Spider)
The Frieze London Artist Award 2026 is co-commissioned and co-produced by Frieze and Forma, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture.
Established in 2014, the Frieze London Artist Award supports an artist to realise an ambitious new work and present it during the fair. The award supports an artist at a pivotal moment in their career, and has become a significant platform, with many recipients going on to institutional recognition and international commissions. Previous winners include Sophia Al-Maria (2025), Lawrence Lek (2024), Adham Faramawy (2023), Abbas Zahedi (2022), Sung Tieu (2021), Alberta Whittle (2020) and Himali Singh Soin (2019).
Frieze London Opening Hours
Wednesday, 14 October: 11am – 7pm (Invitation only)
Thursday, 15 October: 11am – 1pm (Members & Invitation only preview); 1pm – 5pm General admission tickets
Friday, 16 October: 11am – 7pm
Saturday, 17 October: 11am – 7pm
Sunday, 18 October: 11am – 6pm
Frieze London
14 - 18 October 2026
Regents Park
London, NW1 4HG
Selected press
This Giant Spider at Frieze London Will Transport You to a Digital World:Theo Triantafyllidis's climbable sculpture doubles as a portal into his tactile, awkward 'Feral Metaverse.' - Artnet News (7 July 2026)
Frieze London Artist Award 2026
in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture & Forma
Feral Metaverse (Spider)
Theo Triantafyllidis
Forma are delighted to announce artist Theo Triantafyllidis as the recipient of the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award, co-commissioned and co-produced with Forma and, for the first time, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture.The artwork will be on display at Frieze London, taking place at The Regent's Park from 14–18 October 2026.
Triantafyllidis will introduce Feral Metaverse (Spider), 2026, a participatory sculptural installation and extension of his ongoing multiplayer game, rooted in a thought experiment built on shared digital spaces. The installation seeks to explore what these spaces could look like if they were built around co-operation, vulnerability, awkwardness and care, sitting between artwork, social experiment and interaction.
The climbable sculpture acts as the entry point into a shared digital environment in which players cooperate to move, connect and form temporary group bodies – towers, wheels, group hugs, spiders – emerging through the collaborations and actions between players, expanding from the screen into the physical space and from the virtual into the real.
For Triantafyllidis, the spider is a useful figure: strange, scary, intelligent, crafty and unexpectedly tender. From afar, his sculpture might be perceived as threatening. Upon closer inspection, its soft, climbable form invites physical contact. The artwork's tactility disrupts the traditional balance between viewer and artwork, transforming the booth, situated in the heart of the fair's Focus section, from a place of observation into one of active participation. The work asks visitors to climb, hold, balance, coordinate and help one another in order to play.
Feral Metaverse, Theo Triantafyllidis, 2023 - Ongoing. Installation View From if/then Group Exhibition At Ujazdowski Castle Centre For Contemporary Art Warsaw, Pl, 2025. Image By Blazej Pindor © Courtesy The Artist and The Breeder.
Feral Metaverse, Opening Performance At Group Hug By Onassis Onx At WSA NY, 2024. Photo By Sinclair Li © Courtesy The Artist And The Breeder.
Chris Rawcliffe, Artistic Director, Forma, says:
It is an honour for Forma to continue its partnership with Frieze on the Frieze London Artist Award and to collaborate with Google Labs in supporting Theo Triantafyllidis, the 2026 recipient of this prestigious award. Since 2019, we have co-commissioned ambitious new works with artists at pivotal moments in their careers, many of whom have gone on to be presented at major institutions, museums and biennials internationally.
Eva Langret, Director of EMEA, Frieze, says:
The Frieze London Artist Award has always supported artists at a pivotal moment in their career to realise work at a scale and ambition that might otherwise be out of reach. With Feral Metaverse (Spider), Triantafyllidis has created something that demands physical presence. You have to be there, in the room, climbing it, playing it, figuring it out with strangers.
Feral Metaverse: 4 Player Rig (MK-II), Theo Triantafyllidis, 2025. Installation View From Prototype Group Exhibition At Mercedes Benz Studio Odeons Platz. © Courtesy The Artist And The Breeder
Theo Triantafyllidis. Photo by Paris Tavitian, Lifo
For 2026, the award invited an artist to explore advanced technologies, including AI, as a tool and collaborator in the development of the artwork.
Theo Triantafyllidis, says:
It's a great honour to be given this kind of opportunity, visibility and audience at such a key moment in my practice. I get to assemble my team in Athens and push both the game and the sculptural form further than ever before, with a group of people who really believe in the project and the vision, but who can also challenge it and support it. It feels like a supported leap of faith, and a real next step for the work.
Freya Salway, Head of Lab, Google Arts & Culture, says:
We are delighted to collaborate with Frieze and Forma on the 2026 Frieze London Artist Award, continuing our support of artists experimentation with advanced technologies. Theo's work sits at an intersection we care deeply about: technology in service of human connection, play and shared experience. We look forward to seeing how he shapes the tools and brings that to life at Frieze London this October.
This year marks eight years of collaboration between Forma and Frieze on the Frieze London Artist Award. Previous winners include Sophia Al-Maria (2025), Lawrence Lek (2024), Adham Faramawy (2023), Abbas Zahedi (2022), Sung Tieu (2021), Alberta Whittle (2020) and Himali Singh Soin (2019).
The Frieze London Artist Award 2026 is co-commissioned and co-produced by Frieze and Forma, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture.
Established in 2014, the Frieze London Artist Award supports an artist to realise an ambitious new work and present it during the fair. The award supports an artist at a pivotal moment in their career, and has become a significant platform, with many recipients going on to institutional recognition and international commissions. Previous winners include Sophia Al-Maria (2025), Lawrence Lek (2024), Adham Faramawy (2023), Abbas Zahedi (2022), Sung Tieu (2021), Alberta Whittle (2020) and Himali Singh Soin (2019).
Frieze London Opening Hours
Wednesday, 14 October: 11am – 7pm (Invitation only)
Thursday, 15 October: 11am – 1pm (Members & Invitation only preview); 1pm – 5pm General admission tickets
Friday, 16 October: 11am – 7pm
Saturday, 17 October: 11am – 7pm
Sunday, 18 October: 11am – 6pm
Frieze London
14 - 18 October 2026
Regents Park
London, NW1 4HG
Selected press
This Giant Spider at Frieze London Will Transport You to a Digital World:Theo Triantafyllidis's climbable sculpture doubles as a portal into his tactile, awkward 'Feral Metaverse.' - Artnet News (7 July 2026)