Karma
Barnes

In late 2024, Karma Barnes participated in the internationally regarded UNIDEE Residency Program at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, Italy. Established by Michelangelo Pistoletto in 1998, Cittadellarte occupies a former textile mill repurposed as a dynamic center for socially engaged artistic practice. Structured through its Uffizi (offices), Cittadellarte operates as a global laboratory where art functions as an agent of responsible social transformation. Through its ongoing programs, including exhibitions, conferences, and the UNIDEE residency, Cittadellarte fosters transdisciplinary dialogues that integrate art, ethics, and civil responsibility. Barnes’ participation was made possible through the support of Cittadellarte and the Australian Regional Arts Fund, enabling a sustained research engagement that aligned her ecological and community-based practice with the institution's ethos of transformative action.

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Representing Australia/Aotearoa-New Zealand as a Third Paradise Ambassador, Barnes developed two installation works, Everything is Made of Everything Remaining and Filo di Terra e Speranza (Thread of Earth and Hope), within the framework of her Everything is Made of Everything Else research and installation project, presented under the auspices of the Third Paradise Project as part of the annual Rebirth-day celebrations. These works extend Barnes’ ongoing inquiry into the material, ethical, and relational dimensions of climate disruption. Drawing from her lived experiences within Australian communities impacted by ecological crises, Barnes interrogates the tensions between accelerated environmental collapse and collective resilience. At the core of Filo di Terra e Speranza, developed in collaboration with curator Francesco Saverio Teruzzi and realised through engagement with Michelangelo Pistoletto’s cast iron processes, Barnes merges traditional foundry techniques with biomimetic sculptural vocabularies, integrating site-responsive pigments and earth materials into evolving durational forms. These installations operate as dynamic propositions for co-dependent arising, interspecies entanglement, and ethics of care.

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Situated within Pistoletto’s conceptual framework of the Third Paradise, a paradigm seeking reconciliation between the artificial and natural worlds—Barnes’ residency outcomes articulate an expanded discourse on the role of art in socio-ecological systems. At its heart, this project examines how individuals, communities, and environments adapt to shifting climatic conditions, transforming adversity into resilience through empathy, self-responsibility, and collective determination. By activating participatory, cross-cultural dialogues spanning Australia, Aotearoa-New Zealand, and Italy, Barnes’ work contributes to Cittadellarte’s broader mission: positioning artistic practice as a critical platform for planetary care, ethical re-imagination, and responsible social transformation in an era of accelerating environmental precarity.