The winner of the Poetry category for the 2014 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award is Charles Fishman, discusses the inspiration behind his winning poem and what future projects he has lined up.

One of the most innovative artists of the second half of the 20th century is given his first solo exhibition in London at Richard Saltoun Gallery. Filliou’s work challenged the role of art in everyday life.

Berlin-based Japanese artists Futo Akiyoshi, Kouichi Tabata and Takahiro Ueda hold the first group show to take place within White Rainbow gallery. Each artist creates works surrounding the themes of time, space and psychology.

This group show curated by Peter J. Amdam brings together artists who accentuate how art operates in an era of new media, and in a world which is both human and non-human at the same time.

Looking at human-induced climate change and exploring apocalyptic fears, Song for Coal considers the Industrial Revolution as an ongoing process. The project coincides with the end of the 30-year anniversary of the UK miners’ strike.

Pupils from 12 schools take over Impressions Gallery with photographic tableaux re-imagining the past, and playful contemporary portraits which explore history and social identity.

Featuring the work of South African photographer Mikhael Subotzky and artist Patrick Waterhouse, this photographic project documents five years in the lives of the inhabitants of Ponte City.

Curated by Francesca Pola, this exhibition features a selection of significant sculptural works exemplifying the influential six decade career of Italian artist Agostino Bonalumi (1935-2013).

Comprised of 100 photographs assembled over the last five years, The Plot Thickens celebrates the 35th anniversary of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. The exhibition revels in the richness of the photographic medium.

Jonathan Monk replays, revises and re-examines works of Conceptual and Minimal art by acts of witty, ingenious and irreverent appropriation.

For Maria Friberg’s first solo show with Pi Artworks, the gallery has curated a series of photographic and video works that span the last 10 years. Friberg belongs to a generation of Scandinavian artists often referred to as the Nordic Miracle.

Corinne Demas is an award-winning author with 30 books to her name, including five novels, two short story collections, a collection of poetry, and numerous books for children.

Manual Cinema’s Mementos Mori is a feature-length cinematic shadow play that combines overhead projectors, intricate paper puppets, sound effects, a live onstage chamber ensemble, and live actors to discuss digital culture.

In her first major solo presentation in a public London institution, UK-based painter Katy Moran presents a survey of her work from the past 10 years of her practice, curated by Ziba Ardalan, Founder/Director of Parasol unit.

For Sun/Screen, Penelope Umbrico used an iPhone to re-photograph images cropped from thousands of sunset images shared online, this process of capturing images directly from the computer screen creates a moiré pattern.

The next exhibition in the Jerwood Visual Arts’ Encounters series will be curated by The Grantchester Pottery, an artist collaboration between sculptor Giles Round and painter Phil Root.

Sirenes is a Norway-based artist who, in 2011, had her first solo exhibition in Oslo. Now, she has exhibited around the world and in various publications. She has always been fascinated by colours.

With his trademark stripes, printed shirts, slim-cut suits and quirky trims, Paul Smith has created an inimitable style that transcends each season’s trends and flippancies, always with quality at its core, always with humour in its design.

Organised by Jeu de Paume in collaboration with the City of Tours, this is the first show in France dedicated exclusively to Hungarian photographer Nicolás Muller; bringing together a hundred images and documents from the archives kept by his daughter Ana Muller.

The beginning of the 20th century was an era of new technology, artistic ingenuity and creative entrepreneurship — comparable to today’s world where developments in the field of digital imagery succeed one another rapidly.

For his latest series Australian photographer, Murray Fredericks, travelled alone with a bicycle and trailer, carrying his large format camera and supplies to capture an area of Southern Australia in severe weather conditions; taking a physical and mental toll in order to collect the perfect frames.

Designed by Frank Gehry and having opened to the public in 2014, Fondation Louis Vuitton is now launching the second phase of its inaugural programme with an exhibition of work by artist and inventor of Little Sun, Olafur Eliasson.

Mapping the City is an innovative exhibition of works by over 50 rising stars and internationally recognised artists from the street and graffiti art scenes who seek to inspire their audience.

Portuguese artists João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva will present a magical, immersive film installation. Their kaleidoscopic world created by 27 16mm films and two camera obscura works, takes viewers on an imaginative journey into science, philosophy and religion.

Thirteen large-format photographs from conceptual artist Hiroshi Sugimoto’s ongoing Diorama series, executed between 1976 and 2012, feature far-flung landscapes which initially seem to be documents of the natural world.

This exhibition in the Marais district of Paris looks at Bettina, the signature model of the 1950s, in photographs and sketches from an array of practitioners. The work studies her life, beginning with her childhood spent in Normandy.

This is to be the first UK exhibition dedicated to the artist Robert Heinecken (1931–2006), widely regarded as one of America’s most influential post-war photographers and a pioneer of 20th century photographic experimentation.

In collaboration with Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE), Don Gummer is to present a sculpture for the US Embassy in Moscow, Russia, as part of its Site-Specific Collection.

For its 65th anniversary, Bloomberg New Contemporaries arrives at the ICA for the fifth time and selectors Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Enrico David and Goshka Macuga have chosen works by 55 of the most promising artists emerging from UK art schools out of 1,400 submissions.

For Sophie Calle’s first solo exhibition in China, the artist has covered an entire wall with images from her Cash Machine project. The piece first originated in 1988 and was extended 15 years later.

Incorporating 16 “de-finition/methods”, as well as four new pieces, this collection of works by Claude Rutault is the artist’s first solo exhibition in America following an influential practice in France.

Renowned choreographer and dancer, Akram Khan curates the second in The Lowry’s Performer as Curator series, bringing together a personal selection of his influences in the form of sculpture, painting, photography, film, live installation and performance.

A new series of portrait photographs, transformed by embellishments, study the social territory of everyday encounters between strangers.

Brancusi: The Photographs features 29 vintage prints from the 20th century, produced by Brancusi, “one of the greatest artists of the Modern era” according to collector Martin Margulies.

From Henri Cartier Bresson to Martin Parr, Robert Capa and Raymond Depardon, the photojournalists of Magnum Photos immortalise 80 years of the history of Paris in 150 dazzling shots.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, this exhibition will explore how fashion survived and even flourished during wartime. across 300 innovative exhibits.

GRAD sparks new ideas by providing audiences with insights into Russian art, design and culture. Through costume designs and period photographs, this exhibition explores Bolt, Dmitri Shostakovich’s ballet written in 1931.

Hauser & Wirth’s gallery on Savile Row is a space that has been transformed in many possible ways, but this time the micro environment created for Pipilotti Rist’s show emerged as an unexpected -nevertheless pleasant- surprise.

On 7 February the Hammer Museum presents the first museum survey of LA-based conceptual artist Charles Gaines’ early work. The exhibition, entitled Gridwork 1974-1989, will feature 11 different series of over 80 works and relevant ephemera from the early years of Gaines’ four decade career.

Aesthetica champions literary talent from around the world through its annual Prize for short fiction and poetry writers. Now going into its 9th year, the Creative Writing Award is an exciting and dynamic addition to the literary world.

For the 12th year, London Short Film Festival returns with an outstanding programme of short films. Running 9 – 18 January, the festival aims to prove that the UK is truly a hotbed of film creativity.

India’s premier contemporary art fair returns to New Delhi for its 7th edition. Supported by YES Bank, India Art Fair is one of the most important platforms for facilitating creative dialogue and promoting art trade in the region.

2014 has been a great year for contemporary art exhibitions. The huge range of practices on display demonstrates the variety of artistic approaches being developed across the world. From Martin Creed to Annette Messager, all of the artists listed here demonstrate both skill and thought.

Known for her sculptures Scallop (2003) and In Conversation with Oscar Wilde (1998), Maggi Hambling has established herself as one of Britain’s most significant and controversial painters and sculptors. In her latest exhibition Wall of Water, Hambling returns to the National Gallery.

In the midst of a white snowscape, Joël Tettamanti finds moments of captivating colour. While travelling across Greenland, he discovered objects and buildings which had managed to escape the thick layers of snow engulfing the region.

Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas’ sculptures appear haphazard, disjointed and improvisational – and they are. Inspired by his parental home in Ajusco, a district in the south of Mexico City, he calls the sculptures autoconstruccións.

Oil on canvas painter Margaretha Gubernale creates mystical worlds with the source of her inspiration being nature and philosophy. She has worked for nearly 30 years as an international artist and her work has been exhibited widely.

The second instalment of Lacey Contemporary’s launch of its artists showcases the work of three British painters. Reality Departure explores painting’s ability to capture the world as it is mediated by the human mind.

There is more to Allen Jones than those tables. As if to acknowledge this fact, the curators of this retrospective have placed two of them right at the beginning of the exhibition. Once the shock and awe is over, the show unfolds to reveal the unfailing ingenuity of a British Pop artist.

The Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year launches its competition for 2015. The search for the next top UK museum or gallery begins this week, after director of the Art Fund and chair of the judging panel, Stephen Deuchar, revealed the international jury line-up of professionals.