A Ciclotrama must be a rope-maker’s nightmare: the strands he has carefully twisted spinning out of control in all directions. ​ Give Janaina Mello Landini a good long reel of rope and thousands of nails, and she will liberate the rope from its twisted unity to make way for her web. ​ A rope is compounded yarns that have gained tensile strength, which is beneficial for multiple purposes. But Janaina Mello Landini turns it around. She uses the fact that something rolled up is also something that can be unrolled. ​ Splitting roots ​ Ciclotrama is a word Janaina Mello Landini concocted. The root word ‘cycle’ could also refer to binary systems. A drawing of a family tree that graphically illustrates the family relationships is such a system, starting with the primary ancestors. In the Iberian/Iberian-American language regions (such as Brazil where Portuguese is spoken), children are given the family names of both the mother and father. These double-barrelled names reveal the previous lines in the individual’s lineage. The second half of the word, ‘trama,’ comes from the Latin meaning warp, weaving. Just as a family tree traces a child’s line back to his/her ancestors, the ropes of Janaina Mello Landini’s making untwist in the opposite direction: from ancestor to offspring. Ultimately, a network of open ends is born. These find their way on walls, planes, sometimes around objects. Museum Rijswijk now has its own Ciclotrama 82 (intersection). In the old part of the building, the tentacles have taken over the space, bit by bit, the threads taking possession of the walls and ceilings. Two ropes intersect and start to ‘unrope’ in mid-air. The result may evoke associations with neural networks, root systems, or the craquelure of antique paintings. ​ In Janaina Mello Landini’s hands, her controlled sprawls cling onto the mathematic principle of the binary number. At the same time, this act could lead to a static pattern of repetitive and equal branches, each Ciclotramais as headstrong as nature itself.