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CO-Lapses (2025 - Beijing Iteration)
Selected for the 10th Beijing International Art Biennale
Beijing, China
29 December 2025 - 28 January 2026
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Australasian interdisciplinary artist Karma Barnes has been selected for the 10th Beijing International Art Biennale, to be held at the Beijing Exhibition Centre from 29 December 2025 to 28th January 2026, where she will present CO-Lapses, a durational installation of suspended vessels that slowly release coloured sands to form evolving landscapes shaped by erosion, accretion and material memory.
The Beijing Biennale, one of China’s largest and most influential international contemporary art exhibitions, runs under the theme “Coexistence”, inviting artists from around the world to explore the deep interdependence between people, nature and society. Barnes’ inclusion positions her work within a globally significant conversation about ecological change, shared futures and material entanglement.
In an era defined by rapid change, expanding technologies and increasing environmental pressures, Coexistence calls for reflection on how we live together, how we adapt, and how we continue to recognise the dignity and agency of both people and the natural world. Rather than retreat, the Biennale positions art as an active participant in this inquiry: a means of sensing, questioning and reimagining the relationships that hold our world in motion.
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Within this context, CO-Lapses becomes an active system of change, making visible the shifting relations, dependencies and material forces that define coexistence.
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Grand Prix Winner 2025
Larnaca Biennale 'Along Lines and Traces'
Larnaca, Cyprus
15 October - 28 November 2025
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Selected Work: CO-Lapses (2025)
Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia
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​Karma Barnes's work Co-Lapses has been selected as the Grand Prix Winner of the Larnaca Biennale 2025, representing Aotearoa New Zealand/Australia. The major new iteration of CO-Lapses is part of the Biennale’s fourth edition, themed Along Lines and Traces, curated by Sana López Abellán. This highly competitive international event, curated by Sana López Abellán, has selected 117 artworks from 43 countries. The Biennale explores how movements, memories and mark-making shape human experience and how the traces we leave on the land and within each other carry meaning across time. Larnaca Biennale is the largest and most significant contemporary art event in Cyprus, supported by the Deputy Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Larnaca, and the ARTION Cultural Association.
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CO-Lapses
(Refuge 2025 – Shanghai Iteration)
Arte Laguna Prize – 20th Edition, Shanghai
EKA–Tianwu, Pudong District
1 November – 15 December 2025
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CO-Lapses (Refuge 2025 Iteration) continues Karma Barnes’ evolving series exploring material memory, ecological interconnection and transformation across time. Presented at the 20th Edition of the Arte Laguna Prize, Shanghai, curated by Dr. Huang Ye, this exhibition marks a momentous milestone for the prize. For this landmark edition, Arte Laguna selected works from across twenty years of its international finalists, bringing together a major cross-section of global contemporary practice. Barnes’ inclusion signals the growing international recognition of CO-Lapses and the significance of the work within this wider artistic context.
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Conceived as a refuge, this iteration forms an immersive environment of shifting terrains and porous boundaries, seeking to harmonise connections between people, places and cultures through earth pigments, geological processes and embodied materiality. It traces cycles of collapse and regeneration that shape our shared environments.
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Installed within EKA–Tianwu, a newly reimagined cultural hub in Jinqiao, Pudong, the work resonates strongly with the site’s ethos of renewal. Once a century-old industrial factory established by the 1869 Pudong Customs Factory, the complex has been transformed into an “open-air architectural museum.” Spanning more than 40,000 square metres, with 1,500 square metres dedicated to Arte Laguna Prize artists, EKA–Tianwu brings together Exploration, Knowledge and Aesthetics. Its name, drawn from the Sanskrit EKA – “one” or “the unknown element” – reflects a vision of restoring harmony between humanity and nature, where “beauty coexists, and each has its own beauty.”
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Within this architectural and conceptual setting, CO-Lapses takes on new resonance, responding to the site’s scale and history while reflecting on renewal and coexistence. Its shifting materials and evolving forms open a dialogue between built and natural environments, underscoring the significance of its selection for this landmark exhibition.
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Co-Lapses was exhibited at the prestigious Arte Laguna Prize in Venice, Italy, as part of the 18th and 19th editions' finalists' exhibition. Displayed at the historic Arsenale Nord, this large-scale, site-specific installation captivated audiences with its blend of ancient sculptural traditions and contemporary 3D imaging technologies. The work features ten elegant, organically-shaped pods suspended in a constellation from the ceiling. Each clay and pigment vessel holds fine sand mixed with local Italian pigments, which periodically release slender streams of coloured sand. Over time, these streams form ten miniature peaks on the floor, symbolizing humanity's enduring connection to the land.
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Drawing inspiration from the interplay of natural processes and human agency, Co-Lapses explores themes of time, chance, and collective resilience. The use of industrial pigments, traditionally employed in Venetian architecture, highlights the interconnectedness of cultural and environmental narratives. As a durational piece, it acts as a living map of transformation, inviting viewers to reflect on the profound bonds between bodies, landscapes, and history. Barnes’ participation in the Arte Laguna Prize was made possible through the generous support of the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund.
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Everything is Made of Everything Else
Art Research and Installation Project
Unidee Residency Program
Cittadellarte- Fondazione Pistoletto
Biella, Italy
Nov - Dec 2024
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Everything is Made of Everything Else is an art research and installation project by Karma Barnes at Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy, exploring themes of hope, compassion, and interdependence in response to climate change. Inspired by the principles of the Third Paradise, the project invites refection on resilience, personal responsibility, and the potential for transforming adversity through empathy and collective strength.
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Founded in 1996 by Arte Povera artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, Cittadellarte investigates and supports creative interface of the arts with sustainable practices and the natural environment. While there, Barnes immersed herself in the philosophy of The Third Paradise – a concept developed by Pistoletto advocating for harmony of nature, humanity, and technology. Using positive approaches through the arts, education, politics, spirituality, nutrition, and economics
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Landmark Acquisition: Karma Barnes'
Climatic Artworks join the
NMSU Art Museum Collection
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New Mexico State University Art Museum
Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA.
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RELATIVE TERRAINS 2023
Lismore Regional Offsite Gallery
Hosted by Grafton Regional Gallery
16 Sept - 12 Nov 2023
Karma Barnes and Robért Franken
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The Relative Terrains exhibition was scheduled for January 2023 at the Lismore Regional Gallery but with the heartbreaking damage to the gallery during the devastating floods earlier this year the Grafton Regional Gallery has snapped up the opportunity to house the show along with a number of other displaced exhibitions.
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Relative Terrains maps the dramatic shifts in our environmental cycles and how this informs our internal and external experiences. The work traverses the geological terrain and volcanic landscapes of the Northern Rivers and explores how we, the inhabitants of the land, form and change with the forces of the elements, time and life experiences. The exhibition artworks will include a series of large-scale installations and suspended paintings produced in a range of mediums including local pigments.
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Grafton Regional Gallery, NSW, Australia
Exhibition 16 September – 12 November 2023
Public Program 17 August Lismore Regional Gallery
Public Program 7 October Grafton Regional Gallery
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COMPOUNDED CALDERA
WILD PIGMENT PROJECT
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New Mexico State University Art Museum,
Las Cruses,
New Mexico, USA 2023
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Form & Concept,
Santa Fe,
New Mexico, USA 2022.
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Our human experience is composed of compounded responses. The artwork draws parallels between our relationships with each other and our connection to place. Compounded Caldera is a moment in time where bush fires, droughts, floods and an ongoing pandemic have ravaged our community in Northern New South Wales, Australia with little moment to exhale a breath before the next pressing moments of concerns take centre stage. The impacts of climate change have moved from subtle shifts and perturbations towards more obvious and compounding climatic events.
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Form & Concept,
September 17 to December 23, 2022
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NMSU Art Museum
Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
June 22-September 16, 2023.
Tocca La Terra
Imagine the Land Project
MACRO Asilo
Museum of Contemporary Art Rome, Italy.
The Environmental and Participatory Art Installation Projects recent colossal size works from soils and pigments of Rome at the MACRO Asilo, Contemporary Art Gallery of Rome, Italy.
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Imagine the Land Project collaborators Karma Barnes and Ekarasa Doblanovich were invited by curator Giorgio de Finis to exhibit their installation Tocca La Terra as part of the MACRO Asilo (“Hospitable Museum”) Project. Tocca la Terra (Touch the Earth). The work was created in collaboration with viewers at the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome, Italy.
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Tocca la Terra was composed from Italian local soils, hand-gathered by Barnes and Doblanovic from the regional landscapes of Rome and Tuscany. These soils were ground by the artists into fine pigments and transformed into a 18m long art installation, filling one of the MACRO exhibition halls.
