24/02/2026
My work is featured in Carbon News, Aotearoa New Zealand’s daily publication covering climate policy and the low-carbon transition. The article highlights the connection between my practice and broader conversations on climate disruption, adaptation and resilience.
"NZ art focussing on climate on display at Beijing Biennale.
An artist responding to the consequences of climate disruption is the first New Zealander in six years to feature at the prestigious Beijing Art Biennale.
Interdisciplinary artist Karma Barnes is showing her major installation CO-Lapses (Beijing Iteration 2025) at the 10th Beijing International Art Biennale, which opened on December 29 and runs until February 28 at the Beijing Exhibition Hall.
The art work holds a prominent position at the main entrance of the Biennale’s central exhibition hall.
Barnes describes the work as critically addressing the socio-ecological consequences of climate disruption and examining how communities negotiate adaptation, interdependence and response under accelerating environmental change.
As the only New Zealander at the Biennale this year, Barnes says her inclusion highlights Aotearoa’s contemporary art practice on the global stage, situating New Zealand voices within one of the world’s most influential cultural platforms.
The Biennale, themed “Coexistence”, presents nearly 600 works from around 120 countries, spanning painting, sculpture, installation, digital art, and video. Executive Vice Chairman of the China Artists Association, Qu Jian, says that the exhibition fosters international dialogue on peaceful development, ecological civilisation, and technological ethics, while showcasing both traditional and contemporary innovation.
Barnes’ installation CO-Lapses is a "durational" work composed of suspended vessels that slowly release pigmented sands, forming evolving landscapes shaped by erosion, accretion, and material memory. "Inspired by natural processes and ecological disruption, the work reflects cycles of adaptation and regeneration, situating local experiences of floods and fires within broader global and cosmological systems," she says.
This exhibition follows Barnes’ Grand Prix win at the Larnaca Biennale 2025 in Cyprus, where CO- Lapses was unanimously awarded for its “remarkable capacity to merge poetic sensitivity with conceptual and environmental depth.”
Over the past four months, the work has moved across major international platforms. Following Larnaca, CO-Lapses was selected from twenty years of finalists of the prestigious European Arte Laguna Prize for exhibition at the Arte Laguna Prize 20th Edition at EKA Tianwu, Shanghai, where a new iteration of the installation was developed and presented. This followed the work’s earlier presentation in Venice, further extending its international visibility.
Based between New Zealand and the east Coast of Australia, Barnes’ practice spans installation, sculpture, painting, and participatory projects."
