Scale has appeared as a most relevant topic in 2021. While COVID-19 has spread to almost every country on earth amid increased globalization and international travel, in many cases the scale of our own lives as individuals has shrunk dramatically.

The artists in this year’s online exhibition explore relationships with scale on a variety of levels: from the personal (as diligently explored by Alexia McKindsey’s intricate paper sculptures, or Galduryndari D’s interactive google map),to the cosmic world that feels totally beyond us (explored in works by Fábián Emöke, Shane Ackerley and Federica Cogliandro, among others.)

As this year’s pieces are housed in an online gallery, we miss the literal scale of larger paintings by artists such as Filidonos Tatianna and Hau Pham, as well as of tiny pieces by Violet Kumagai and Jennifer Akkermans. Yet, the content of the work shines through as these artists convey complex notions about our relationships with ourselves and to the larger world around us.

Other artists have chosen to visit these ideas by exploring the scale of landscape and architecture, nature and the human-made world around us. Pieces such as Mario Molins’ Don’t Touch My Seeds, and Jennie Lau’s Through the Isolated Eyes series serve as reminders of the big world out there that needs care and attention in a post-COVID world.

In an extraordinary year, it is wonderful to see so many up-and coming artists offering rich and powerful works of art. While it may feel as though our worlds have become smaller this past year, the sharing of art and creativity allows us to connect the world over, and to offer some much needed comfort in these trying times.