Donna Haraway dwells in that elite strata of cult celebrity wherein a mere mention of her attendance is enough to attract lines out the door and down the block. Last year, Artspace’s editor-in-chief Loney Abrams found herself amidst such a throng outside of Anthology Film Archives for the New York premier of Fabrizio Terranova’s documentary Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival. “I didn’t get tickets in advance just because I figured it’d be a pretty niche event,” Loney recently recounted to me, “But so did the hundreds of people who also showed up to the sold-out screening.” It may well be a hallmark of Haraway fandom to underestimate the postmodern feminist’s influence and popularity—recommending a Donna Haraway book is not unlike introducing someone your favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant in that your recommendee must be someone trusted enough to “get it”.

While she may not exactly be a mainstream figure to those in the scientific field, Haraway’s highly progressive scholarship and unorthodox approach has earned her high regard within the artistic community. This past year, her ranking on ArtReview’s Power 100 list skyrocketed from 43rd to third, just under conceptual artist Pierre Huyghe and artist-theorist Hito Steyerl, and even Steyerl has drawn inspiration from Haraway’s work. For example, the Berlin-based artist’s landmark 2015 installation Factory of the Sun was largely inspired by a quote from Donna Haraway’s seminal 1985 essay, A Cyborg Manifesto, which reads, “Our best machines are made of sunshine; they are all light and clean because they are nothing but signals.” Haraway also happened to be on the same advisory committee for Documenta 13 as Peter Huyghe in 2012.

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