Remote, beautiful – and increasingly endangered – the Arctic has long been a subject of fascination for many and a source of inspiration for artists. SALT is an ambitious concept to create arts and cultural experiences on our planet.

Until recently Barrie Dale saw himself simply as a nature photographer. Then, with nature being destroyed to the point where it was possible to envisage none being left, he became a conservationist.

Finalists of the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award will be given opportunities to generate greater audience reach for their literary works. The Award remains open for submissions until 31 August.

Questioning the world around us is a continuous necessity and the desire to challenge everyday systems reinvigorates daily life. This special 60th edition of Aesthetica celebrates innovation.

There is one month left to submit poetry and short fiction to the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. Dianna Henning was longlisted for the most recent Award with her poem Between Young and Old Time, published in the Award’s Annual along with 53 other writers selected by the judging panel.

In Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination, Annette Kuhn commented that a photograph should not be considered a ‘mirror of the real’ but ‘material for interpretation, evidence in that sense: to be solved, like a riddle; read and decoded, like clues left behind at the scene of a crime.

Henning Kreitel documents the surreal elements of reality. Shooting everyday scenes, his approach to lighting, angles and colours results in visually arresting and almost magical imagery.

Labelled by the Picture Post in 1938 “the greatest war photographer in the world,” Robert Capa spent the majority of his life capturing shocking war-torn landscapes.

With a career spanning more than 40 years, Susan Hiller is one of the most influential artists of her generation.

The Akademie der Künste in Berlin examines the effect of art on reality itself, and how it is constantly adapting and transforming according to the viewer.

Maxime Delvaux and Kevin Laloux’s project, Box, is a compilation of dramatic scenarios constructed entirely from cardboard and miniature furniture.

The fashion photograph has become a central part of today’s visual language. From advertising to editorial, these stylised, artistically inspired, ultra-glamorous images are everywhere.

Formento & Formento take the concept of street photography to the next level. The duo transform their chosen locations, which are bursting with cinematic beauty and brooding darkness.

This stunning book documents the loving detail that goes into the creation of limited edition collector’s pieces for the music, book and magazine industries.

Eka and Natia, two gal-pals on the verge of womanhood in Tblisi, rush towards the next stage of their lives as violence threatens their homeland.

Mistaken for Strangers is not a conventional band-on-tour film. It is as much about the relationship between two brothers as it is about The National.

With no prejudices, no preconceptions, Ossian Ward proposes a formula to understand contemporary art.

Polanski mulls over the sexual politics behind the actress-director relationship, taking cues from the man whose seminal 1870 novella gave masochism a name.

As part of Aesthetica’s Special 60th Edition, we have partnered with London College of Communication to survey some of photography’s rising stars.

From the first images of the great metropolis to portrayals of the Midwest, a new exhibition addresses architectural photography as a window on social and economic crisis and progression.

Monica Bonvicini navigates issues of gender, power and control through the use of architecture, installation, language and drawing.

From the opening electronic notes of Breathing  to the heavy drum beats of Not the End of the World, the album features catchy hook after hook.

Child’s play and the macabre world of Annette Messager appear in a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

The Moons’ Mindwaves sees the foursome dive headfirst into rock ‘n’ roll’s dressing-up box in pursuit of the quintessential pop song.

Coinciding with a large-scale exhibition at Tate Modern, this text explores the life and work of influential Russian artist Kazimir Malevich.

A retrospective of the work of conceptual artist, Christopher Williams, at MoMA in New York unravels the parade of contemporary consumer culture.

Jacques Olivar combines style with storytelling, producing visually stunning works that reflect the beauty of the scenery and spin a silent tale.

Soft riffs and pain you can sing along to is the order of the day, as Left ambles through 15 songs of gentle storytelling.

Camera Crazy highlights our obsession with photography from a nostalgic perspective. Over time, cameras first invented as toys have gained iconic status.

Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden reunite for the beautifully seductive Last Dance. Primarily comprising of new material, the album still finds room for the duo to build on some of Jasmine’s songs.

Set in 1985 against the changing, cultural mecca of San Francisco, Test explores the life of a young, gay, modern dancer within the early, terse days of the AIDS epidemic.

Conversations takes the listener on a journey, down long, straight roads into a period of introspection.

Ilo Ilo is set in Singapore during the financial crash that happened in the 1990s, but it could as well be Britain in the second decade of the 21st century.

A fictionalised 24 hours in the life of Nick Cave, replaces traditional rockumentary aesthetics with an exploration of how we spend our time on earth.

Kelly Reichardt’s fifth feature film, Night Moves, follows a group of three very different left-wing environmentalists as their well-intentioned morals take a terrible turn for the worse.

Genre divides in music have become increasingly irrelevant. As time goes by the boundaries continue to blur, but why now, what’s changing?

Helen Lawrence, a new production from leading visual artist, Stan Douglas, combines live film and theatre, and transforms expectations of how audiences experience narrative.

Exciting times lie ahead as we move into the phase of one month left to submit your work to the Aesthetica Art Prize. Cass Art highlights this Prize as a must for artists wanting to make a significant impact upon the art world today.

Jeff Wall pioneered large-scale photography, transcending the classical into the contemporary. His critically acclaimed work, produced in the form of colour transparencies displayed in lightboxes since the 1980s, was inspired by the backlit advertisements found at bus stops in Europe.

Appropriately enough, with the UK basking in a rare summer heatwave, the Photographers’ Gallery’s latest Print Sales exhibition evokes the British seaside holiday – complete with ice creams.

We are delighted to present the Judging Panel for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2015. The Prize is open for submissions until 31 August 2014. Spanning the arts industries, our judges lend their expertise to support the next generation of artists.

Austrian artist Franz West was a pioneer in viewer participation. He achieved worldwide fame with his furniture and sculpture for exterior and interior spaces, and his Passstucke (Adaptives).

Sean Kelly’s latest group exhibition presents ancient objects alongside contemporary paintings and offers a visual dialogue between old forms and those being investigated today by young painters working with abstraction.

As Exciting As We Can Make It: Ikon in the 1980s, currently on display at Ikon Gallery is a departure from the solo and two-person exhibitions that have become synonymous with Ikon’s programme.

The Zabludowicz Collection – which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year – is presenting four solo exhibitions of sculpture, taking place simultaneously in a former Methodist chapel.

Aesthetica celebrates the work of writers through its Creative Writing Award. We look in depth at short fiction writer Gemma Hawdon and present an extract from her selected story.

Becca Pelly-Fry is Director of Griffin Gallery and Global Artist Outreach Programme Manager for ColArt. Griffin Gallery supports emerging artists through its diverse programme of shows and its annual art prize, Griffin Art Prize.

This summer The Hepworth Wakefield presents the first reinvention of Allan Kaprow’s Yard to be realised in the UK. First installed outside the Martha Jackson Gallery back in 1961, Kaprow’s seminal “Environment”, or “Happening” will be hosted by The Calder, The Hepworth’s newest space.

The House of Illustration is not new. It launched in 2002 as a UK illustrators’ collective, spearheaded by Emma Chichester and indeed Quentin Blake himself, and has since attracted the attention of illustrators Peter Blake, Lauren Child, Sara Fanelli, David Gentleman and Jan Pienkowski.

There is just over one month left to enter the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. We highlight those longlisted from the latest award, which include Lucienne Kim Flavell author of Borders.