Australasian Artist Karma Barnes Wins Grand Prix at Larnaca Biennale as Dual Iterations of CO-Lapses Unfold Across Cyprus and China.
Bundjalung Country, Australia - November 2025
Australasian interdisciplinary artist Karma Barnes, representing Australia and New Zealand, has been awarded the Grand Prix of the Larnaca Biennale 2025 for her landmark installation CO-Lapses. Presented at Apothiki 79, a historic limestone warehouse in central Larnaca, the work was unanimously selected by the jury for its conceptual clarity, environmental depth and material intelligence.
This recognition coincides with the debut of a major new international iteration of CO-Lapses at the Arte Laguna Prize: Shanghai Edition, the first Asian presentation of the Venice-based award. Curated by Dr. Huang Ye and staged within EKA Tianwu’s expansive “open-air architectural museum,” the Shanghai exhibition introduces a further evolution of Barnes’ durational installation practice.
Venue: Apothiki 79, Larnaca Biennale, Cyprus / EKA - TIANWU, Pudong District, Shanghai, China
Date: Larnaca Biennale Oct 15 - Nov 28 / Arte Laguna Shanghai Nov 1 - Dec 15 2025
Web: https://www.karmabarnes.org
: https://www.instagram.com/k.a.r.m.a.a.r.t.s/
EMail: artnewsau@gmail.com
Call: +61 450707709
Date: Larnaca Biennale Oct 15 - Nov 28 / Arte Laguna Shanghai Nov 1 - Dec 15 2025
Web: https://www.karmabarnes.org
: https://www.instagram.com/k.a.r.m.a.a.r.t.s/
EMail: artnewsau@gmail.com
Call: +61 450707709
Request Image Contact: artnewsau@gmail.com
Image Copyright / CDN: Larnaca Biennale
Co-Lapses- Karma Barnes, Grand Prix Winner 2025, Larnaca Biennale
A Major Win in Cyprus
Curated by Sana López Abellán under the theme Along Lines and Traces, the 2025 Larnaca Biennale features 117 works from 43 countries and is considered Cyprus’ most prominent contemporary art event.
Abellán writes:
“The jury unanimously recognised Karma Barnes as the Grand Prix winner, noting her remarkable capacity to merge poetic sensitivity with conceptual and environmental depth. Her work stood out as an emblem of this year’s exhibition where time unfolds not as a linear progression, but as resonance, rhythm, and return.”
At Apothiki 79, Barnes presents an upscaled interpretation of the miniature mud architectures built by wasps that inhabit her Bundjalung studio. Using 31 Cypriot earth pigments and oxides, suspended vessels slowly release fine layers of limestone sand and pigment, forming shifting groundscapes that accumulate, erode and reform over time. The work unfolds as a living system shaped by biomimicry, material memory and ecological adaptation. The Larnaca Biennale runs until 28 November 2025.
A New Iteration in Shanghai
A distinct iteration of CO-Lapses, titled Co-Lapses (Refuge Iterations 2025), is simultaneously on view at the Arte Laguna Prize: Shanghai Edition (3 November – 15 December 2025). Installed across 1,500 m² within EKA Tianwu, this version incorporates Chinese mineral sands and perspex architectural forms, creating an immersive terrain that explores collapse, regeneration and cycles of geological resonance.
The Shanghai exhibition marks 20 years of the Arte Laguna Prize, now expanded into Asia. Featuring over 100 international artists, the show brings together new voices and material experimentation from across two decades of finalists, positioning Barnes as a leading Australasian artist working at the intersection of ecological systems, material investigation and contemporary installation.
Barnes reflects:
“These two iterations of CO-Lapses allow the work to breathe across continents- one shaped by limestone and coastal histories in Cyprus, the other by mineral sands and industrial architecture in Shanghai. Together they form a conversation about how environments transform us and how we might learn to listen differently to the materials that sustain us.”
A Practice of Resilience and Material Intelligence
The CO-Lapses series originated after Barnes observed mud wasps incorporating pigment from her artworks into their nests, a moment of non-human collaboration that informed her investigations into resilience, adaptation and material agency.
An early iteration was developed for Lismore Regional Gallery and later presented as a displaced exhibition at Grafton Regional Gallery following the 2022 floods. The work was further expanded for the 18th Arte Laguna Prize Finalist Exhibition at Arsenale Nord, Venice (2024) before reaching its award-winning and internationally concurrent 2025 forms.
Across each iteration, Barnes reimagines the architectures of mud wasps on a human scale, transforming natural strategies of shelter and protection into time-based sculptural environments. CO-Lapses positions art as a living system, one that invites contemplation of connection, vulnerability and renewal within shared material worlds.
About the Artist
Karma Barnes (Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia) is an interdisciplinary artist working across installation, expanded painting, sculpture and socially engaged practice. Her work explores ecological change, material memory and collective resilience through temporal, site-responsive environments. Barnes has exhibited internationally, including at MACRO Asilo- The Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (Rome, Italy), the Arte Laguna Prize (Venice, Italy), New Mexico State University Art Museum (New Mexico, US) and leading regional galleries across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Curated by Sana López Abellán under the theme Along Lines and Traces, the 2025 Larnaca Biennale features 117 works from 43 countries and is considered Cyprus’ most prominent contemporary art event.
Abellán writes:
“The jury unanimously recognised Karma Barnes as the Grand Prix winner, noting her remarkable capacity to merge poetic sensitivity with conceptual and environmental depth. Her work stood out as an emblem of this year’s exhibition where time unfolds not as a linear progression, but as resonance, rhythm, and return.”
At Apothiki 79, Barnes presents an upscaled interpretation of the miniature mud architectures built by wasps that inhabit her Bundjalung studio. Using 31 Cypriot earth pigments and oxides, suspended vessels slowly release fine layers of limestone sand and pigment, forming shifting groundscapes that accumulate, erode and reform over time. The work unfolds as a living system shaped by biomimicry, material memory and ecological adaptation. The Larnaca Biennale runs until 28 November 2025.
A New Iteration in Shanghai
A distinct iteration of CO-Lapses, titled Co-Lapses (Refuge Iterations 2025), is simultaneously on view at the Arte Laguna Prize: Shanghai Edition (3 November – 15 December 2025). Installed across 1,500 m² within EKA Tianwu, this version incorporates Chinese mineral sands and perspex architectural forms, creating an immersive terrain that explores collapse, regeneration and cycles of geological resonance.
The Shanghai exhibition marks 20 years of the Arte Laguna Prize, now expanded into Asia. Featuring over 100 international artists, the show brings together new voices and material experimentation from across two decades of finalists, positioning Barnes as a leading Australasian artist working at the intersection of ecological systems, material investigation and contemporary installation.
Barnes reflects:
“These two iterations of CO-Lapses allow the work to breathe across continents- one shaped by limestone and coastal histories in Cyprus, the other by mineral sands and industrial architecture in Shanghai. Together they form a conversation about how environments transform us and how we might learn to listen differently to the materials that sustain us.”
A Practice of Resilience and Material Intelligence
The CO-Lapses series originated after Barnes observed mud wasps incorporating pigment from her artworks into their nests, a moment of non-human collaboration that informed her investigations into resilience, adaptation and material agency.
An early iteration was developed for Lismore Regional Gallery and later presented as a displaced exhibition at Grafton Regional Gallery following the 2022 floods. The work was further expanded for the 18th Arte Laguna Prize Finalist Exhibition at Arsenale Nord, Venice (2024) before reaching its award-winning and internationally concurrent 2025 forms.
Across each iteration, Barnes reimagines the architectures of mud wasps on a human scale, transforming natural strategies of shelter and protection into time-based sculptural environments. CO-Lapses positions art as a living system, one that invites contemplation of connection, vulnerability and renewal within shared material worlds.
About the Artist
Karma Barnes (Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia) is an interdisciplinary artist working across installation, expanded painting, sculpture and socially engaged practice. Her work explores ecological change, material memory and collective resilience through temporal, site-responsive environments. Barnes has exhibited internationally, including at MACRO Asilo- The Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (Rome, Italy), the Arte Laguna Prize (Venice, Italy), New Mexico State University Art Museum (New Mexico, US) and leading regional galleries across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.