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Curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, this year’s Istanbul Biennial is titled ‘The Seventh Continent’, in reference to the vast mound of plastic waste in the ocean, and asks us to think about the anthropocene, climate emergency, and the end of the world or the beginning of a new one. Helen Nisbet reports.

Anna Berry continues her reflections on a curatorial residency at Midlands Arts Centre, in partnership with DASH. In this piece – co-published with Disability Arts Online – she gets her hands dirty and starts to learn some of the tricks of the trade.

In the first of a series of articles co-published with Disability Arts Online, artist Anna Berry writes about becoming DASH curator-in-residence at Midlands Arts Centre.

Inspired the writings of Italo Calvino, the ‘Six Memos’ exhibition in Liverpool brings together 20 artists from 12 European cities in the CreArt network. As Brexit draws nearer, Martin Hamblen reflects on its cruel asymmetry.

A recent event at MAC in Birmingham brought practitioners and curators together to interrogate ‘the (in)visibility of disabled artists’. Anneka French reports on a productively critical discussion.

This year’s Engage conference in Manchester brought together educators, curators, researchers, artists and policymakers to discuss the diversity of approaches to arts and health – both physical and mental – in current practice. Artist and writer Alistair Gentry reports.

At the conference ‘Pivotal Moments: Professional Development Models for Mid-Career Artists’, staged by London Creative Network (LCN) in association with a-n, participants including artists Keith Piper and Erica Scourti, and Wysing director Donna Lynas discussed career development and the importance of institutional support for artists. Lydia Ashman reports.

The recent ‘Hope to Nope’ exhibition at The Design Museum ended in controversy earlier this month when artists and designers removed their work in protest at the museum hosting a private hire event by an arms manufacturer. One of those activist groups to remove their work was the artist-run organisation Keep It Complex, who share here what they learned from the experience.

A group of 27 artists and art lecturers are taking the National Gallery to tribunal following their dismissal last year, in a bid to prove that they were employees rather than freelancers. ‘NG27’ member Richard Stemp argues that the case has important implications for all artists and those working in the arts.

When artist and writer Alistair Gentry first shared his experiences of depression earlier this year it resulted in a flood of private feedback and led a-n to commission a series on artists and mental health for our Resources section. Drawing on the conversations he’s had with artists and arts workers, he argues for more openness about mental illness and wellness in the arts.

At the recent Jamboree 2018 event on the Dartington Estate in Devon, the London-based German artist Rosalie Schweiker presented an improvised slide show about the difference between being a conventional ‘sausage’ artist and a hard to pigeonhole ‘mince’ artist. Here she turns that talk into a short explanation of her thinking – with added drawings of sausages, mince, and mince-based products.

Taking place on the idyllic Dartington Estate in Devon the a-n-supported Jamboree 2018 brought together 150 artists, curators and programmers from across the UK for lively discussion and the exchange of ideas. Hannah Pierce, a-n’s external programmes and partnerships manager, shares the key things she learnt from the event’s four days.

Following a call-out asking artists to submit their ‘preparations, patterns, neuroses, speculations, and procrastinations that surround the production of art in the studio’, the four-day Inventory of Behaviours event at Tate Modern saw these submissions turned into instructions that were carried out by volunteer artists, students and members of the public. Trevor H. Smith explores the value of the transitional space between not making and making art.

The 10th Berlin Biennale, titled ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’, sees curator Gabi Ngcobo and her team presenting a finely balanced exhibition that allows individual works to speak and collective ideas to be explored. Cathy Wade, one of 10 a-n Artist members who attended the Biennale preview, reports from the German capital.

With ongoing demands for greater equality in the arts, the need to reimagine a more inclusive visual arts sector is increasingly urgent. On the eve of the European Outsider Art Association Conference at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, Lydia Ashman makes the case for a new approach to ‘outsider’ artists and their art.

Over 100,000 children a year will lose the chance to study the arts when the EBacc becomes compulsory in schools in England and the least privileged will lose out most. Is this a conspiracy or a cock-up, asks ArtsProfessional’s Liz Hill.

Writing for a-n News in August 2016, Hull-based artist Paul Collinson called on the City of Culture legacy team to “set foot outside their fortress and talk to those who will be left behind to carry on the good work”. Now, after the city’s high-profile year of cultural activity, he looks back over the year and asks, “Where next?”

With too many artists’ residencies excluding those who don’t have independent means of support or who have responsibilities at home, Alistair Gentry welcomes Wysing Art Centre’s new residency programme and calls for more of the same from building-based arts organisations.

A group of artists in Bristol has coordinated a united front in the face of an Arts Council England visual arts review in which they feel they weren’t offered an equal seat at the table. They outline their intervention in a recent public consultation event while proposing a new approach for the city’s art ecology.

In response to recent allegations of sexual harassment within the art world and the resignation of Artforum co-publisher Knight Landesman, an open letter has been published by ‘art world workers’ calling for an end to silence around the issue and a renewed effort by individuals and institutions to deal with what it describes as ‘an environment of acceptance and complicity’. Here, we republish the letter in full.

To coincide with Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern, US writer Claudia Rankine presented a reading from her new play, which explores racism in the art world and beyond. Sonya Dyer found it a powerful vehicle for exploring the intersections of capitalism, race, empathy and resistance – particularly in light of the Dana Schutz Whitney Biennial controversy and a renewed focus on depictions of the Black body.

For the latest in our series providing a snapshot of visual arts scenes across the UK, Amelia Crouch reports from Bradford.

At a recent symposium in London, academics, technologists, artists and film makers gathered to discuss the politics and ethics of art technology. Artist and writer Alistair Gentry attended and was struck by the need for a much closer relationship between the tech and ethical tendencies in this ongoing and vitally important debate.

The UK has the most highly developed arts infrastructure in the world. But, asks 2016-17 Clore Visual Artist Fellow Maurice Carlin in the first of two short provocations, imagine if it all disappeared overnight. Would it make a difference to your career? Would you still make art? And what do we want this infrastructure to do?