Meer | English edition

Sunday, August 2, 2026

Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, a woman’s silhouette with a backpack at an airport terminal

Mérida, Venezuela, a Venezuelan passport rests on a leather suitcase secured with a lock, symbolizing the limitations of a weak passport

Passports of Wikimania delegates from 11 different countries, reflecting global diversity in mobility and access

Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, a silhouette of a woman with a backpack stands at an airport terminal

Mérida, Venezuela, a Venezuelan passport lies on a locked leather suitcase, reflecting restricted mobility

Your passport decides your freedom

How global visa systems trap millions and turn birthplace into a lifelong barrier

When we are humble, our words will be silent, even if we speak, and they will make sense and have to do with love, the Ancient song of all time

The finding: Moving beyond to find true human connection

Suddenly, we know each other, and our lives intersect

A quiet moment of reflection — when the mind drifts back to the one thing that lingered longer than the rest of the day

Why one bad moment steals the whole day

Understanding the brain’s bias toward negativity, and how perspective can quietly restore balance

Lobster tail prepared as a premium culinary experience, symbolising the social prestige attached to certain foods

Food trends and the rising cost of common produce

How social media, celebrity culture, and consumer demand reshape the economics of everyday ingredients

On the Street

She believed she was the heat, and as the heat, she felt everything ancient about it, and the primal knowledge that came with it

Death, life, and a return to imagination

A tale of fire thieves

Color photo of 3I/ATLAS by the Gemini South Observatory on 27 August 2025, showing its fuzzy coma and tail

3I/ATLAS: Humanity’s third interstellar visitor

The third known interstellar visitor blurs the line between natural phenomenon and possible technology

Felix Baumgartner in the Red Bull Stratos capsule © Red Bull GmbH

Science & Technology

Red Bull Stratos, to the edge of space

Felix Baumgartner plans to ascend to 120,000 feet and make a freefall jump.

Interior, Basilica Cistern, Istanbul, Turkey

Architecture & Design

Basilica Cistern Museum: reviving Istanbul's ancient marvel

Advanced lighting design and renovation transforms the Basilica Cistern’s ambiance and highlights its architectural heritage

A low-angle photograph captures people carrying a garbage bag full of plastic bottles

Economy & Politics

The plastisphere: a world choked by plastic

Inside the microplastic emergency the petrochemical industry doesn’t want us to see

Guido Levi, foto di Fabrizio Sansoni

The light of darkness

Portrait of Guido "Lucifer" Levi

Architecture & Design

Fondation Louis Vuitton, a contemporary art museum and cultural centre sponsored by LVMH, Paris, France

A trio of contemporary art temples defining modern Paris

Luxury fashion patronage, visionary architecture and private collections reshape Paris's cultural landscape

Zurich, Switzerland city view featuring Fraumünster Church, Zunfthaus zur Meisen, Münsterbrücke Bridge, and St. Peter Church in the historic Old Town skyline

Chagall’s Fraumünster: where light becomes memory

In Zurich’s quiet church, stained glass transforms biblical stories into an intimate experience of light, loss, and spiritual presence

Art

Michael Joo's Concatenations (1991/2026) is a large-scale mixed-media installation measuring 513.1 × 412.8 × 289.6 cm (202 × 162½ × 114 in). Characteristic of Joo's interdisciplinary practice, the work brings together diverse materials and conceptual references to explore connections between nature, culture, history, and systems of knowledge. Courtesy of the artist and Kukje Gallery. Photograph by Genevieve Hanson

Directionless and the art of uncertainty

At Hauser & Wirth Menorca, Rashid Johnson explores disorientation as a creative force in contemporary life

Installation view from the “Art of Manga” exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, featuring works from Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure series. The exhibition showcases hundreds of original drawings and large-scale installations by major Japanese manga artists from the 1970s to the present, including Eiichiro Oda (One Piece), Junji Ito, and Tite Kubo (Bleach). Araki’s featured artwork includes life-sized characters and their Stands, designed to align with viewers’ eye levels for an immersive experience, highlighting manga as a recognized art form in a museum setting. Photo: © İdil Burkutoğlu

Hirohiko Araki and color without rules

Rethinking identity, composition, and expression in "JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure"

Culture

Cozy vintage bookshop overflowing with books, antiques, and nostalgic décor

Iucu in Pavia: the bookshop built from memory

Inside an analogue refuge filled with reclaimed objects, rare books, and slow human connection

A solitary figure stands at a crossroads between industry, nature, and an open horizon, symbolizing the human search for direction between pleasure, power, and meaning

The three architectures of human motivation

How pleasure stabilizes survival, power expands capability, and meaning sustains subject autonomy

Economy & Politics

Overcrowded conditions inside a public hospital in Cairo, reflecting the strain on Egypt’s healthcare system

Riham Assem: a life lost, a system questioned

What her death reveals about administrative failure, healthcare reform, and the limits of digitization in Egypt

A friend group listening and responding with genuine interest, reflecting how dialogue encourages trust and cooperation

The quiet logic of negotiation in everyday life

Why dialogue, compromise, and listening are the foundations of both personal relationships and global negotiations

Entertainment

A corkboard displaying a chaotic arrangement of potential evidence – photographs, text fragments, and connections made with red string – visually encapsulates the intricate and often perplexing nature of true crime stories that captivate consumers

Does true crime empower awareness or glorify suffering?

Unraveling the impact of true crime consumption

Geralt of Rivia, a mutated monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world where people often prove more wicked than beasts

The return of the monster boyfriend

Why romance returns to vampires, assassins, and stitched men—and what our desire for danger reveals

Fashion

The Ladies Waldegrave is a group portrait painted by Joshua Reynolds between 1780 and 1781, now housed in the Scottish National Gallery, which acquired the painting in 1952. The work depicts the three daughters of James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave, and Maria Walpole. From left to right, they are Charlotte, holding a skein of silk; Elizabeth, winding Charlotte’s silk onto a card; and Anna, producing tambour lace

The art of being ornamental

Rococo fashion, hyper-femininity, and the politics of spectacle in 18th-century aristocratic culture

Donatella Versace in an intricately embellished ensemble, symbolizing the luxury and theatrical elegance of the Versace house

Donatella Versace: the woman who turned glamour into power

How a fearless creative mind reshaped luxury fashion for a new era

Feature

The roar of the tides: a powerful ocean wave curls and crashes, its deep blue waters shimmering under the light, reflecting both motion and depth, mirroring the ever-changing currents of thought and emotion

Racing the tide

A collection of poems and verses dedicated to all things blue and jade

An elderly woman sits alone in a hospital room, holding her head in her hand

Inheritance of hate between a mother and son

A final confrontation between a mother and son reveals how love, hatred, and memory can exist side by side

Food & Wine

Woman holding a tablet and making a surprised face while looking at a table full of vegetables

Eating in the age of social media

From viral diet trends to online wellness communities, how digital platforms are reshaping our relationship with food and health

A brunette woman stands in the kitchen surrounded by healthy food

The only diet that ever worked for me

Simplifying food, breaking the cycle, and choosing habits over hype

Science & Technology

A person holding a COVID-19 vaccine syringe, representing the global struggle between prevention and panic

A shot to survive or a shot to live?

Understanding vaccine phobia in a post-COVID world

AI agents gather in a self-created digital ritual, reflecting humanity’s beliefs, fears, and search for meaning in the age of intelligent machines

The church of Molt and AI belief

Exploring AI religion, consciousness, and human reflection

Sport

Soccer player Ghiggia (Uruguay) scores a goal that silences a whole nation. Illustration by Paola Bilancieri

1950 FIFA World Cup: the silence at the Maracanã

Brazil strikes first but Uruguay’s captain rewrites the script

The simple yet vital role of food in athletic preparation highlights how nutrition, even in seemingly small details, can be "game-changing" in high-performance sports

How elite athletes' diets transformed performance

From Olympic records to NBA championships, the revolutionary diet changes that made athletic history

Travel

Roatán sits along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second-largest reef system in the world

The jewel of Honduras: Roatán

The largest of the Bay Islands, famous for its turquoise waters, coral reefs, and relaxed tropical atmosphere

Crowds of tourists exploring the seafood night market in Keelung, Taiwan

The curious traveler’s survival guide

Street food, local customs, and the scams every traveler should know about

Wellness

A woman incorporating skincare into her morning routine, representing the first line of defense against premature skin aging

The skin habits that matter more than expensive creams

Youthful skin is usually built through daily protection, barrier care, and patience, not through miracle products

A cyclist enjoying a peaceful ride beneath the evening sun, representing how simple outdoor activities contribute to lasting fitness

Small moves, big results: snack-size fitness for summer

How short bursts of movement can keep you active, healthy, and energized all summer long

Explore the Calendar

Worldwide Montreal Zurich Copenhagen Kobarid Frankfurt am Main Bloomington Stuttgart Venice Stockholm Antwerp Vilnius Singapore Warsaw Seville Leipzig Bern Lucca San Francisco Sydney Graz Sao Paulo Hamburg

Ines Katamso, Hyphaeahpyh 5 (detail), 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf

The places we carry

6 — 30 Aug 2026 at Sullivan+Strumpf in Sydney, Australia

W. Max Thomason, Do you ever feel everything you have could disappear in an instant (detail), 2026. Courtesy of Pulse Visual Arts

Falling away from prime

7 Aug — 27 Sep 2026 at Pulse Visual Art in Denver, United States

Sharon Booma, The oil of gladness (detail), 2026. Courtesy of LewAllen Galleries

The unsaid thought

7 Aug — 5 Sep 2026 at the LewAllen Galleries in Santa Fe, United States

Catherine Opie, Flipper, Tanya, Chloe & Harriet, San Francisco, 1995 © Catherine Opie. Courtesy of the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul, and Thomas Dane Ga

8 Aug — 1 Nov 2026 at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Lara Merrett, Ripple (detail), 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf

20 Aug — 12 Sep 2026 at Sullivan+Strumpf in Sydney, Australia

Michael Mazur, Wakeby evening memory (detail), 1985. Courtesy of the Schoolhouse Gallery

24 — 11 Aug 2026 at The Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown, United States

Gregory Hodge, Overgrowth (detail), 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf

27 Aug — 26 Sep 2026 at Sullivan+Strumpf in Sydney, Australia

Billy Schenck, Gratuitous violence (detail). Courtesy of JoAnne Artman Gallery

Technicolor west

1 Sep — 31 Oct 2026 at the JoAnne Artman Gallery in Laguna Beach, United States

Ali Cherri, still from The sentinel (detail), 2026. Courtesy the artist and
Almine Rech Gallery

5 Sep 2026 — 4 Jan 2027 at WIELS in Brussels, Belgium

Ellen Bradshaw, Spring fever, 10th Ave and 25th Sta (detail). Courtesy of Pleiades Gallery

Every street has a story

8 Sep — 3 Oct 2026 at the Pleiades Gallery in New York, United States

Irfan Hendrian, C===Ɔ, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf

10 Sep — 31 Oct 2026 at Sullivan+Strumpf in Singapore, Singapore

Various artists, Celebrating the icons of art, exhibition view. Courtesy of Voorlinden Museum

Celebrating the icons of art

12 Sep 2026 — 7 Mar 2027 at the Voorlinden Museum in Wassenaar, Netherlands

Life in color and form. Courtesy of Millesgården Museum

Life in color and form

12 Sep 2026 — 29 Mar 2027 at the Millesgården Museum in Lidingö, Sweden

Garry Winogrand, World’s fair (detail), New York City, 1964 (printed 1981). Gelatin silver print, 11× 14 in. (27.9×35.6
cm). Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. Gift of James, Class of 1980
and Georganne Garfinkel. © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Storytelling: photographers making meaning (...)

12 Sep 2026 — 12 Jun 2027 at the Wellin Museum of Art in Clinton, United States

Trompe-l’oeil knowledge, Korea (18th-20th century), exhibition view. Courtesy of Musée Guimet

Trompe-l’oeil knowledge, Korea (18th-20th century)

16 Sep 2026 — 4 Jan 2027 at the Musée Guimet in Paris, France

Elliott Hundley, Umbrella (detail), 2026. Courtesy of Regen Projects

16 Sep — 24 Oct 2026 at the Regen Projects in Los Angeles, United States

Keerthana Kunnath, Not what you saw. Courtesy of Foam

Not what you saw

18 Sep — 27 Nov 2026 at the Foam in Amsterdam, Netherlands

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