During the biennial, Le Grand Tour invites you to explore another essential aspect of Sydney’s contemporary art scene: the galleries.  In this series of correspondence between December 2025 and March 2026, five voices engaged in a dialogue of insights and perspectives: Ursula Sullivan and Joanna Strumpf, co-founders of Sullivan+Strumpf; D’Lan Davidson, head of the D Lan Galleries network; Chloe Morrissey, associate director at COMA; and Toby Meagher, who manages Michael Reid in Sydney and its Berlin satellite.

What a privilege it is to open this third issue with the words of Anthony Gardner, whose reflections have accompanied us since the magazine’s launch in 2023! A professor at Oxford University, working at the intersection of art history and political science, he is a major reference for us, and a guide to this biennial culture, which he examines in depth in a book co-authored with Charles Green in 2016.

In the turbine hall of the White Bay Power Station, a massive white baobab appears unexpectedly. Draped in cotton veils, it seems to float weightlessly, despite its dizzying height—its branches brush the ceiling from the second floor. Is it a mirage? Intrigued, the visitor quietly approaches the ancient tree. Dressed all in white, Nikesha Breeze (born in 1979) invites us to step inside.

Ema Shin’s sculptures are radiant, mysterious, poetic. At first glance, it is difficult to identify the shape of these delicate organs, which both evoke parts of human anatomy and underwater creatures that would have been removed from their natural habitat. On their surface, an entire ecosystem of threads, beads, flowers, pearls, and embroidery populates these organisms with an abundant network of veins, ropes, and valves finely executed by the artist’s hand. These meticulously crafted sculptures produce a striking, haptic visual effect.