2021 has seen the return of some of the world’s most popular art fairs. But what do these creative gatherings look like in a post-lockdown world?

“The sea and its ecosystems encompass us all.” Art appears across South Korea’s beaches, questioning our relationships with the non-human world.

The idea of “institutional critique” first blossomed in the late 1960s. But what does it look like today? How are contemporary artists exploring the field?

In May 2020, Audrey Marquis bought her first camera. Lockdown made it difficult to photograph people – so she decided to shoot houses instead.

“This is not just an exhibition, it is a campaign.” Design Museum explores creative approaches to tackling the problem of throwaway culture.

Architectural photographer Hélène Binet might be best known for her long-standing relationship with Zaha Hadid. A new retrospective opens at the RA.

A new exhibition in New York presents five artists using their iPhones professionally to explore the nature of identity in innovative ways.

Paleoclimatology is the study of ancient climates. Noémie Goudal responds to this research, reflecting landscapes past and future.

Brad Walls’ latest aerial series is inspired by 1940s fashion photography. It also taps into feelings of isolation from the past 18 months.

Andreas Gefeller’s aerial photographs highlight shapes and patterns of infrastructure, from the sprawling and asymmetrical to the small and neat.

What role do images play in the way we understand crises? Thomas Wrede’s glacier photographs combat anthropocentrism in 2021.

How does style equate to a sense of belonging? What are the semantics of fashion? These are some of the questions asked by Casey Orr.

Sophie Holden is the 2021 recipient of the Aesthetica / London College of Communication Next Generation Award – a rising star.

In the Santa Barbara series, Diana Markosian draws on autobiography, mixing fantasy and reality. But what motivates such work? Who is it for?

Crescent moons, bending branches, manicured garlands and grouped balloons: these are the colourful portraits of photographer Fares Micue.

Kevin Cooley’s latest series reveal the struggles – both practically and psychologically – of inhabiting a planet we, as a species, are slowly destroying.

African art has complex ties to the rest of the world. What, then, is the most effective way to survey its varied set of traditions, cultures and movements?

In the baking Berlin summer, in direct sunlight, German-American photographer Jessica Backhaus arranged a number of transparent paper cut outs.

These carefully constructed images by Ellen Kooi echo the work of Flemish painters, with a sense of tension – psychologically and geographically.

Markus Guschelbauer’s colourful, closely cropped photographs speak to a world of disconnect, in which roughly a third of all trees have been cut down.