While the Dutch city of The Hague may be best known for the judicial arm of the United Nations, there’s a lot more to it than global peace and justice organizations. It’s home to some of Europe’s most esteemed art museums, such as the Mauritshuis, where you can visit Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Then there’s the immanently popular Madurodam, a sprawling scale model of some of The Netherlands’ most famous and historic palaces and public buildings. That, in turn, is located in the charming Scheveningen district, which boasts a wide, popular beach on the North Sea.

Madurodam, for one, is where you’ll find a handful of playful inflatable art installations as part of BlowUp Jubilee, an anniversary edition of The Hague’s popular BlowUp Art event. Now in its sixth year, the open-air public art exhibition curated by Mary Hessing brings together 20 pieces that interact with monuments and buildings in a celebration of heritage and access for all.

For BlowUp Jubilee, artists whose work has been shown during the past five years have been invited back. In many cases, the sculptures are in new locations or configurations. Scale, color, and form interact in surprising ways as inflatable orbs, shell-like shapes, spikes, and more reimagine a variety of landmarks.

At Madurodam, size and scale are on particularly curious display, as what appears to be a giant pink chair in the middle of a fountain is actually quite small. Other works around town, however, celebrate historic architecture with genuinely monumental creations, such as Steve Messam’s bulbous, green passageway installation or Eugenie Boon’s ode to her Caribbean heritage in a piece titled “koncha pa dilanti,” which refers to a board game played on the islands. You’ll also find a giant yellow donut by John Körmeling, a pink pavilion by Sigrid Calon, and a cosmic cafe concept by Yamuna Forzani.

BlowUp Jubilee continues through June 21. Learn more and plan your visit by checking out the event’s website. You might also enjoy Bubbletecture.

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“Color, for me, is a heightened reality,” says J Carino. Through palettes rooted in a dynamic dance between earth and jewel tones, the artist renders lush scenes in which nude figures commune with nature. A sturdy back buttresses a fallen tree, chests and limbs peek through a summer meadow, and a muscular grip cradles a small mule amid a raging flood. Blocks of color and gestural brushstrokes characterize each composition, which question what we deem natural and innate.

The intimacies of queer life figure prominently in Carino’s work, which layers bodies and organic motifs into dense expanses. He employs a variety of source materials that range from renderings of live models and videos of himself to nature studies and plein air drawings in pastels, the latter of which often inform his color palettes. “Typically, my work begins with observation of nature. It might be a fallen tree, a particular animal or plant that I then make drawings of,” he adds.

Researching the historical and cultural symbols associated with these organic forms follows, while allowing connections between objects and motifs to emerge spontaneously as he works. “I see patterns as a kind of personal language to symbolize larger concepts and themes that I can then weave together into different narratives,” the artist tells Colossal. “There is a collage-like aesthetic to my work that reflects these different pieces coming together.”

From biblical floods to determined donkeys to autumnal leaves, the elements that comprise Carino’s paintings touch on questions of desire, paradise, and queerness through human connection to the natural world. Even when disaster strikes, there’s an overwhelming sense of beauty and resilience, bolstered by both physical strength and deep bonds with one another.

Carino recently relocated to London, and he will start a master’s program at the Royal College of Art this fall. If you’re in Los Angeles, his work will be part of a group exhibition opening in early June at Albertz Benda. Otherwise, find more on his website and Instagram.

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Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the earth, and yet there is so much we have yet to understand about these vast and biodiverse expanses. Even though we’ve recorded tens of thousands of marine creatures over the decades and scientists are discovering new species all the time, we’ve really only scratched the surface. According to The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census, up to 90 percent of ocean life remains a mystery.

A major collaborative program involving Schmidt Ocean Institute and many others, Ocean Census is accelerating the pace at which marine life is found and documented. Between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026, alone, the initiative’s researchers officially discovered 1,121 new species through 13 expeditions and nine “species discovery workshops” involving leading scientists around the globe.

“With many species at risk of disappearing before they are even documented, we are in a race against time to understand and protect ocean life,” says Dr. Michelle Taylor, who is Head of Science for Ocean Census. “Too many species remain in limbo for years because the process of formally describing them is too slow. We urgently need to change that…Every new species—whether a shark or a sponge—deepens our understanding of marine ecosystems and the benefits they provide for the planet.”

Explore hundreds more newly discovered species on the Ocean Census website.

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Home to some of London’s most iconic landmarks, the City of Westminster sees around 25 million of tourists every year. Add that number to residents and professionals who transit through central London daily, and we’re talking lots of people using the Underground, a.k.a. the Tube. Fortunately for travelers, eight stations are getting restroom upgrades with a big assist from Hugh Broughton Architects.

When the Victorians established the first underground train network in the mid-to-late 1800s, they incorporated arched details and tile work that is preserved today, often augmented with contemporary nods to the city’s history and culture. Opened in 1863 along the Metropolitan Line, Baker Street is one of the oldest stations. In a design convention seen throughout the Underground, decorated tiles added later feature a silhouette of Sherlock Holmes—a tribute to the character’s fictional address on the station’s titular street.

Tile designs are richly embedded throughout the system. An architect named Leslie Green is known for a slew of deep red tile facades on more than a dozen central stations. Some interiors are covered practically top to bottom with the material, with the location names and “Way Out” signs made entirely from ceramic. Bethnal Green station features fantastic relief tiles of London icons, and a few years ago, a design student named Jeffrey Miller even repurposed the Tube’s own waste into Art Nouveau-style tiles modeled on historic versions.

Hugh Broughton Architects’ redesign continues this tradition, but it also serves the practical purpose of making these spaces safer, more inclusive, and more accessible. “There is a clear demand for public toilets across London, and many councils struggle with the costs surrounding maintenance and issues around antisocial behaviour,” says a statement. “To address this issue, the council is creating a series of inclusive facilities that demonstrate high-quality design and enshrine as much civic pride as the Victorians displayed when they first started looking at a proper sanitation system for the general public in the 19th century.”

The facilities at Victoria Embankment, Parliament Street, Piccadilly Circus, Green Park, Carnaby Street, Westminster Pier, Covent Garden, and Leicester Square are all getting vibrant makeovers. The tiles incorporate designs by artist and illustrator James Lambert, who interprets the distinctive character of each location through historical motifs and iconography. Among numerous playful references, you’ll find patterns consisting of the King’s Guards in their iconically tall, black, furry helmets and a tribute to George John Vulliamy’s giant sphinxes that guard Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment.

The restrooms are being refurbished in succession. Victoria Street opened in February 2025, followed by Parliament Street, and now Piccadilly Circus and Green Park. The next will be Carnaby Street and Westminster Bridge. Follow updates on the firm’s Instagram.

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In Ava Roth’s sculpture practice, a finished piece is the result of careful planning and tending, but the outcome can only be predicted so much. Whether creating wooden frameworks or organic embroideries, the artist leaves it to bees to create the ultimate form.

Roth has long invited the honeycomb-building insects to play a role in her work, often adding wonderfully bulbous constructions that occasionally disrupt the artist’s carefully placed boundaries. Wooden pieces are mandala-like and take on the quality of low reliefs once the bees have done their part. Recently, she leapt into the three-dimensional realm via ceramics and a time-honored tradition of repair in her series Kintsu-Bee.

The new body of work is a play on the Japanese word kintsugi, which describes a traditional method of repairing ceramics with metallic lacquer. The process embraces the nature of the breakage itself, mending the vessel yet highlighting the cracks as a way of embracing the object’s history rather than trying to camouflage it. In Roth’s iteration, bees are invited to reconstruct the missing parts, guided around forms to create the missing handle of a mug or fill in the fissures of a dinner plate.

“Mirroring the philosophy of kintsugi, the unique architecture of the comb acts both as a restorative measure and as a visual memory of the past,” says a statement. “When extracted, the delicacy and complexity of the composite objects—half human and half insect—tell a story not just of human violence but of the earth’s capacity for repair.”

See more on Roth’s Instagram.

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From dusky woodland scenes to fantastical landscapes populated by mythical creatures, Shannon Taylor’s vibrant dioramas spring to life inside vintage cosmetic compacts. Sourced from flea markets, vintage shops, friends, and anywhere else they might appear, the vessels themselves are often brimming with character, but they let on little about what resides inside. Tiny mermaids, unicorns, and a range of flora and fauna made with watercolor on paper beckon us into a Polly Pocket-sized realm.

In addition to the inclusion of her work in Common Waters at Arch Enemy Arts, Taylor is preparing for a solo exhibition titled Minor Mending at Modern Eden in San Francisco, which opens on August 6. She also curated a show at the Oakland Museum of California titled Fairyland @ 75: A Legacy of Magic, organized on behalf of Children’s Fairyland, where she is Director of Art and Restoration. The show continues through the end of the summer. See more on Taylor’s Instagram.

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Photography is often touted as the most democratic and accessible medium in the visual arts. Today, the majority of us carry phones equipped with powerful, easy-to-use cameras that capture our lives and the world around us, transforming each of us into a documentarian at a moment’s notice. This omnipresence shapes our understanding of art and culture and often serves as a critical tool for political and social change.

The same is true for a forthcoming exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985 transports viewers to the mid-20th century, when the medium rose to prominence not only for artists but also for organizers, activists, and cultural icons. Featuring works by more than 100 photographers, the expansive exhibition ranges from editorial and commercial commissions to self-portraits and mixed-media social critiques. Many of the works push back against the state-sanctioned racism of the Jim Crow era and highlight the acts of protest that emerged from such discrimination.

Included is a graphic collage by Ralph Arnold titled “Above This Earth, Games, Games” that splices cut-outs of football matches with images of war and destruction. Taken that same year, 1968, was Ernest Withers’s captivating shot of Memphis sanitation workers picketing following the death of two employees. Creating a visual wall of signs declaring “I Am A Man,” the strikers in suits and hats demand both better working conditions and dignity and respect.

Cultural touchstones like the enigmatic musician and philosopher Sun Ra also appear. In a dynamic, black-and-white photo by Ming Smith, the jazz leader spins in front of the band, his glittering garb appearing like a halo of brilliant sparks.

Exhibition curators contextualize the show in a quote from Julian Bond, a civil rights leader who helped establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: “Pictures told, for those who could not see themselves, of the strength and beauty of the people, of the hostility and anger of the opposition, and of the promise of a world free of racism.”

Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985 is on view from July 25 to November 8 in Jackson.

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Artists iterating on a seemingly mundane object is one of our favorite exhibition concepts. Vintage envelopes, coasters, and matchboxes are just a fraction of the items galleries have offered as unique canvases for small works, and now, we can add nighlights to that list.

On view through June 26, DUDD LITE is a collaboration between the design collective Dudd Haus and the gallery The Future Perfect. Curated through an open call that garnered nearly 400 submissions, the playful exhibition presents more than 130 artist-designed nightlights made from stained glass, wood, seashells, ceramic, cotton, and more. The small works hover between sculpture and functional object, each reflecting a distinctive sensibility and approach to a household staple. See all designs on The Future Perfect website.

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Every year, there are two major migration events. Birds, insects, fish, and many mammals head north in the spring to nest and breed and return south in the winter to feed and raise their young. Using BirdCast, a tool that’s active seasonally and allows anyone to see bird migration “heat maps” around the U.S., ornithologists tracked a record-breaking one billion birds migrating on a single October night in 2023 (last year, that number reached 1.2 billion). But on the night spanning October 4 to 5, something else really big happened: nearly 1,000 birds died in Chicago after hitting a single building.

McCormick Place Lakeside Center is situated along the Lake Michigan shoreline, set apart from other buildings in a park-like space, and it has roughly enough windows to cover two football fields. As birds cruise along the shore, flitting over greenery, they sometimes mistake the reflections of nature in glass for the real thing. On the morning of October 5, hundreds of birds fell victim to architecture.

When artist and educator Holly Greenberg heard this news, she was stunned. No stranger to nature and long interested in sustainability and the environment, she was nevertheless totally unaware of the scale of bird collisions in the U.S. During a day out in a Chicagoland arboretum, on sabbatical from her role as assistant professor at Syracuse University, she worked with a group to remove invasive buckthorn and make room for native trees. A fellow volunteer rued the sad irony of planting new bird habitat when the feathered creatures try to fly into their reflections in glass instead.

“That was the first time that I’d heard that these birds were crashing into windows in Chicago,” Greenberg says. When she later read about the mass collision at McCormick Place, she thought, “Oh man, something needs to be done.” That’s when the multi-year project Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene was born.

Greenberg launched the initiative in 2024 to not only raise awareness of the problem but also to educate people about preventing incidents. Using data from the Chicago Field Museum and with the help of its lead ornithologist Dave Willard, Greenberg landed on a specific number: 10,863. That’s how many were found dead after hitting Chicago buildings in 2023 alone.

It’s estimated that around one billion birds die in window collisions annually throughout North America. One of the organizations working to collect this data and—just as importantly—to protect, rescue, and advocate for avians is the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (CBCM) program. Every morning, volunteers walk the streets of the city to count and collect fallen individuals, taking them to wildlife sanctuaries for treatment or rehabilitation where possible. Most, however, don’t survive the impact.

Paul Groleau, president of a company called Feather Friendly that makes bird-safe window treatments, suggests that many more die from window impacts than we realize. Greenberg hears people at her workshops say things like, “I heard a bird hit my window, but it flew off, so it’s fine.” Groleau, however, posits that about 60 percent of birds that are stunned do not survive. Their skulls are paper-thin, and if they don’t hemorrhage, they may sit under some shrubbery as they try to recover, which makes them more vulnerable as prey.

When CBCM volunteers find dead specimens, they take them to the Field Museum, where the bodies become part of an archive Willard has overseen for decades. Many are preserved in the museum’s collection, each tagged and identified. At the very least, they are added to a carefully tended data set, which lists thousands upon thousands specifically killed by impacting windows at speed.

10,863 is the number Willard had recorded in 2023. Of course, the actual number of birds that collided with windows that year is exponentially higher, but the figure reflects the number that Willard and the CBCM volunteers found. And it’s the exact number that Greenberg is getting thousands of people to help recreate from fabric and glue. At the same time, she’s sharing knowledge about collisions with others through craft, science, advocacy, and social practice.

Starting with a small grant and a group of interns at Syracuse University, Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene began with the list of avians from the Field Museum, some basic crafting supplies, and photographs of individual birds so that makers could replicate the actual species. Eventually, Greenberg relocated to Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and opened a studio where she hosts workshops and processes birds that are sent in from all over North America.

Workshops are facilitated across the U.S. and Canada, and so far, a total of more than 140 have been held. Materials can be downloaded from the website, and anyone can host a workshop. Popular locations include public libraries and schools. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is behind the BirdCast tool, has even launched a pilot program to send hundreds of sew-a-bird kits to biology teachers in New York State in order to help students complete a core education requirement.

The hands-on, participatory, and very communal aspect of the bird workshops is fundamental to the project’s success. Greenberg opens her studio to the public on the first Saturday of every month as part of the Evanston Made program, and private gatherings can be organized, too. “People get into the flow, no one is touching their phone, and everyone is super concentrated,” Greenberg says. “They’re working with awkward materials, and it’s a mess, but it’s a good creative mindset.”

Studies have shown that hands-on or experiential learning is linked to greater knowledge retention, attentiveness, and experimentation. As people create their house sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, golden-crowned kinglets, and many more—and one’s level of technical skill is no matter—a sense of camaraderie builds around a common pursuit. Greenberg then provides resources about how to help prevent bird collisions, such as information about remediation technologies.

Businesses like Feather Friendly make products that can be applied directly to any window, most commonly in the form of small vinyl dots. It also offers Bird Divert, which uses clear dots that are actually hard for us to see, but due to the way birds’ vision works, the application helps them to differentiate between architecture and nature. Fritted glass is another method, which involves ceramic details baked right onto the surface of the glass.

Greenberg sees the artistic potential in the remedial window coverings, and she has previously invited artist Taro Takizawa to apply beautiful organic lines made of hand-cut vinyl on the top windows of her Evanston studio. For a forthcoming social project this summer, Greenberg plans to install different types of remediation dots on the large storefront windows of the space, plus an installation by artist Alice Hargrave, who creates abstract works using the sound waves of bird calls.

While the official number of finished birds is currently at 3,451, Greenberg estimates there are at least 1,000 more awaiting tagging and entry into the project’s handwritten ledger, which is reminiscent of museum catalogues before computerized records came into widespread use. With the help of a team of interns, she labels each bird individually with its species name, its artist, and where it “flew” in from. And installation opportunities abound.

Eventually, the birds will create one giant “carpet” to illustrate not only the poignant and urgent reality of bird collision deaths, but the power of collective action. In the meantime, groups of the fabric critters go on view occasionally in other exhibitions. One of these is Chicago Architecture Center’s forthcoming show, Flyway City, which “aims to catalyze positive change on making cities safer and more welcoming for birds and diverse wildlife” by focusing on how architecture can help to protect avians from the get-go.

The exhibition is organized by Studio Gang, whose lead architect, Jeanne Gang, has also encouraged the city of Chicago to enact building codes that are more bird-friendly. While Evanston has an ordinance that requires bird-friendly building design, Chicago does not yet, although it’s been on the table many times. Greenberg hopes that continued advocacy and information-sharing empowers others to speak up, too, so that these types of changes will be seen in more communities all over North America.

Flyway City runs from June 11 to January 3, 2027, in Chicago. Keep updated about workshops and other ways to get involved by following Greenberg’s Instagram.

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If you want to participate in Pat Perry’s new photo project, you’ll have to get comfortable heading outside, grabbing a few friends, and preparing to hunt low and high for obscure spots in your neighborhood. The Detroit-based artist recently launched “Liminal Bingo,” a communal photo hunt designed specifically “for people ages 5 to 105 living in boring places or exciting places.”

Open to anyone with an internet connection, the project has a simple premise: grab a camera (phones are okay, although Perry encourages film if possible), and snap photos of his illustrated prompts. When you’ve collected five in a row, you’ve got a bingo!

The instructions, though, are less straightforward than the premise, requiring participants to gather with friends, speak to passersby, and generally get out into the world and interact with one another. One asks you to capture a handshake with a stranger as you both wear sunglasses. Another invites you to send a landscape photo to someone you miss and share the evidence via screenshot. When you’ve collected five, post your images on Instagram or send them to Perry via email.

Photos submitted by August will be considered for inclusion in a fall exhibition at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York and a potential book. Find FAQs and more information on participating on the project’s website.

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