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With the announcement last week that James Richards is to represent Wales at the 2017 Venice Biennale, joining Rachel Maclean for Scotland, Phyllida Barlow in the British Pavilion and Jesse Jones for Ireland, Belfast-based curator Hugh Mulholland laments the continuing absence of a Northern Ireland presence at the world’s longest running art biennial.

Commissioned to write a 500-word comment piece, artists Kerri Jefferis, Sophie Chapman and Rosalie Schweiker started thinking about the words we use in the visual arts and the need for new ones. This is what they wrote.

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.

In the midst of a growth in performative and participatory art at international art biennials, Documenta recently confirmed the site of a new permanent institute in Kassel. Inspired by an academic conference on conserving contemporary art, Laura Harris assesses the challenges the institute faces in a climate where the experiential is increasingly taking precedence over the art object.

Being a mother of young children and continuing your art practice is incredibly difficult. Inspired by a recent symposium exploring the challenges of being a ‘mother artist’, Frances Bossom – who presents a ‘Proposal for a Guide for Art Parents’ at June’s a-n Assembly event in Bristol – calls for an approach that values the complex reality of motherhood.

As Washington DC prepares for the 20 January presidential inauguration and the rest of the world is gripped/appalled by the latest predictably narcissistic Donald Trump Twitter outburst, London-based artist Sonya Dyer – who was on a residency in Nebraska during the election – reflects on her US experience and considers what the new era means for art and artists.

The Istanbul Biennial has had a troubled few years. In 2013 it was embroiled in controversy over its reaction to political demonstrations in the city’s Taksim Square, while the current 14th edition arrived at a time of growing political tension in the country. As it draws to a close this week and Turkey prepares to go to the polls in a snap election, Dany Louise argues that this international biennial has failed to respond to the urgent and compelling context it finds itself in.

With the recent announcement by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland that both QSS and Paragon Studios in Belfast have lost all their annual funding, Damian Magee addresses the impact of the decision on the city’s artist community and argues that it is indicative of a general lack of support for artists living and working in Northern Ireland.