Kia ora koutou, and welcome to Global Compass, our monthly dispatch tracking the work and networks of Aotearoa artists abroad.
Writing to you just over a week after the 21 June solstice, I’m taking this moment of seasonal change as our departure point: I’m afraid we’re going to have to talk about the weather, which at the moment, feels less like awkward small talk and more like a matter of survival.
While a record-breaking Northern Hemisphere heat dome has been forcing thousands of European schools to close, the upcoming rising of Matariki in Aotearoa calls us inside to huddle and reflect. Thinking across both climates, I’ve been craving quiet spaces away from the bottomless scroll and predictive algorithms. I spotted a woman reading a paper newspaper on the train the other day, with no targeted ads, no tracking: what an absolute luxury. In a hyper-digitized world, handmade, tactile objects have become our ultimate safe spaces.
This craving for grounded, ecological mindfulness also runs through recent and upcoming event listings. At the Biennale Teatro in Venice, Lemi Ponifasio’s Star Returning – Venice, choreographed with Indigenous Yi artists, invited us to listen to the earth and ancestors right at the height of Europe's heatwave.
Just last weekend, the MISS READ Art Book Fair held its 2026 edition at silent green Kulturquartier in Berlin, and its consistently high numbers prove the independent print scene is thriving; that artists continue to build alternative ways to exchange ideas, despite steep global paper costs and doubled international shipping rates.
For practitioners looking to keep these independent models alive, the focus has shifted toward the hyper-intimate. Before exhibiting at MISS READ, Aotearoa artist and co-director of Replika Publishing Freya Copeland spoke at a Berlin panel (Small Talks Vol. 3: Finances at einBuch.haus) about how independent makers survive by being resourcefully "scrappy." Her advice? Forget about expensive offset print runs, and focus instead on creating highly localised, tactile value.
Copeland’s latest publication, Fang, a photographic analysis of the trauma following the catastrophic Valencia floods where she now lives, is the antidote to the screen-first society we’re being sold. Printed via Risograph and hand-stitched on domestic sewing machines, the pages give off the energy of a handwritten note.
This same impulse to archive community spaces before they fade was also on view at Art Basel, where critics responded to the physical power of Los Angeles-based Aotearoa sculptor Fiona Connor’s Closed Down Clubs, Chango Coffee (2022). Her meticulous replica of a shuttered café door, complete with security gate, tape residue, and silkscreened closure notices, alludes to the social spaces we’re losing year on year; a pointed reminder perhaps that libraries are one of the only places left where we can publicly gather without making a purchase.
Whether you are cozying up for Matariki or escaping record-breaking heat, it seems now is a good time to pick up your favourite book, learn a material skill, and record our shared realities so we can touch them before they're gone.
Read on for this month’s featured opportunities, which include eco-social research fellowships in Venice, a climate residency in Norway, and Indigenous-led publishing opportunities in New York.
On this month
Australia & Pacific
Milli Jannides: The Tip of the Tongue | Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Gadigal Lands Sydney | Opens 4 July
Curated by Victoria Wynne-Jones, Jannides’ solo exhibition presents a new series of ambient landscapes and oil paintings, continuing the artist’s attempts to capture felt sensations, recollections and locales drawn from her imagining, reading and note-taking.
XX | Neon Parc, Brunswick | Until 25 July
Celebrating 20 years of Neon Parc, XX highlights two decades of contemporary art experimentation with works by the gallery's represented artists, including visual artist Dan Arps and jeweler Karl Fritsch.
Preston McNeil: Arca Arcade: Round One | Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell | Until 2 August
As part of an Australian tour, industrial designer McNeil collaborates with prominent Aotearoa street artists to transform custom-built, playable arcade machines into contemporary art installations. Pieces feature te ao Māori influences and designs by Gina Kiel, Flox, Otis Frizzell, Joe Sheehan and Otis Chamberlain.
Asia
Simon Mark: Human Materials | Kathmandu Photo Gallery, Bangkok | Until 25 July
Mark, an Aotearoa street photographer and researcher, presents a solo exhibition exploring the uncanny parallels between the human body and the built environment. Curated by Akkara Naktamna, the photographs strip back clean, orderly architectural surfaces to reveal a chaotic, hidden world of industrial machinery, wiring and waste.
Europe & UK
Areez Katki: Fiction Makes Me Nauseous | Neukölln Speicher, Berlin | 5 July
As part of the 48h Neukölln festival, this group exhibition and performance series features ten international practitioners, including Aotearoa artist Areez Katki, who draw on methods of autotheory, autoethnography, and biomythography to connect personal experience with broader social concerns. Katki presents their 2026 work, A Zoroastrian Priest in Berlin.
Oli Mathiesen: Just Between Me and Jesus | Teatro alle Tese, Venice | 23–24 July
Winner of the Biennale Danza 2026 international call, Māori choreographer Oli Mathiesen debuts a highly physical work featuring seven leading Aotearoa dance artists. Backed by a heavy techno soundtrack, the performance blends dancefloor and rave culture (ballroom, waacking and vogue fem), to look at the collision of faith and queer celebration.
Trick of the Light Theatre: The Bookbinder & Suitcase Show | Europe Tour | June–Sept
The award-winning company from Pōneke Wellington tours two works across Scotland, Ireland, and Denmark, using shadow puppetry, live animation, and a stack of battered suitcases to tell dark fairytales.
Opportunities beyond Aotearoa
2026 Gwangju Biennale Academy International Curator Course | Gwangju, South Korea | Apply by 5 July
An intensive professional development and networking programme embedded within the biennale’s curatorial framework, inviting emerging contemporary practitioners, curators, critics, and artists aged 35 or under to critically examine global exhibition histories.
The Tentacular Fellowship | Venice, Italy | Apply by 5 July
Organized by TBA21–Academy and Ca’ Foscari University, this 15-month fellowship offers €26,000 for a creative practitioner or collective to address eco-social challenges in the Venetian Lagoon. The fellow will build community-led, regenerative projects rooted directly in the local environment.
Forging Journal Cohort 2026–2027 | New York, US | Apply by 20 July
The Native-led digital journal by Forge Project (with an editorial committee featuring Aotearoa’s Lana Lopesi) invites pitches from writers for a series of two to three articles or cultural analyses centring Indigenous survivance. The six selected cohort members receive $1/word on assignment, a $1,000 stipend, and a week-long self-directed writing residency in Upstate New York.
Te Māori Fellowship | Oxford, UK | Apply by 20 July
Two six-week residencies at the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford for Māori curators, researchers, or cultural heritage professionals to engage directly with UK-held taonga Māori and share mātauranga Māori.
Connections Through Culture (CTC) Grants – The British Council | Global | Apply by 19 August
The flagship programme is open for its 2026 funding cycle, providing bilateral grants of up to £5,000 for Aotearoa-based artists, collectives, and cultural organisations to develop meaningful partnerships, cross-cultural co-creations, and long-term creative collaborations with UK-based counterparts.
Fjellstad Art Residency | Handnesøya Island, Norway | Launching (Euro) Summer 2026
An anticipated new residency platform designed specifically for multidisciplinary practitioners working critically at the intersection of contemporary art, climate science, and ecology. One to watch!
