TERRA 2025: Contemporary Art Takes Root in Burgundy

Arriving in Beaune in late October feels like stepping into a painting. En route to the cobblestoned town, widely considered to be the wine capital of Burgundy, vineyards stretch along the roadside. By now, the leaves are turning to shades of gold and rust. I reach this idyll just in time for sunset. The low light catches on the patterned roofs of old buildings, their glazed tiles glistening in green, yellow and black. Over the weekend, I learn these polychrome roofs, once used to crown abbeys and imposing residences, are a signature of the region, symbols of prestige from the Middle Ages. It is in this picturesque landscape that TERRA 2025 unfurls, returning for its third and most ambitious edition.

Co-founded by Jenn Ellis, Emie Diamond, and Milena Berman, TERRA transforms Burgundy’s UNESCO recognised sites into a sprawling exhibition of contemporary art. “The idea for TERRA came about almost four years ago,” says Ellis, who grew up between Switzerland and Colombia and is now based in London. “I met Milena on a trip from Basel to Venice. She kept picking out these extraordinary wines at every stop, and I thought, in the art world we obsess over every detail, but we rarely think about that final sensorial element, what we’re drinking and how it connects to place.”

And so TERRA was born. “Burgundy is different to Bordeaux or Champagne,” Ellis explains. “Here, it’s not about selling wine through art. All the bottles are allocated well in advance. It’s about a love for culture and for the land itself. Terroir, in Burgundy, is almost sacred. It’s the holy grail of thinking about place.” The French term, “terroir,” is used to describe the various factors of a natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, from the soil and topography to the climate.

Burgundy’s wine-making heritage dates back to the Romans and was refined by the Benedictine and Cistercian monks who mapped its vineyards in the Middle Ages. The Cistercians at Cîteaux Abbey were the first to notice that wines from neighbouring plots could taste entirely different, laying the foundations of terroir philosophy that still shapes the region today.

TERRA draws directly from this lineage, situating contemporary works within spaces charged with centuries of human and geological memory. The 2025 edition stretches across four main sites and two satellite locations, each chosen for its atmosphere and history. “We wanted to avoid what I call the UFO effect,” Ellis says with a grin. “We didn’t want to land, do something shiny, and disappear. From the first edition, people asked on opening night, “So, next year?” That’s when we realised this was going to be a journey, not a one-off trip.”

At La Cuverie des Cîteaux in Savigny-lès-Beaune, once a monastic winery linked to the abbey that gave birth to the Cistercian order, the themes Texture / Passages of Time frame an enquiry into materiality. Among the stone vats and worn timber beams, Hansol Kim presents floor-based sculptures that seem to breathe in the room’s quiet humidity. Made from Jesmonite, beeswax, tree branches, yarn and leather, they explore the relationship between fashion and living ecologies.

Through these works, Kim’s fascination with clothing becomes almost biological. He deconstructs and reconstructs fabric into sculptural forms that mimic symbiosis, transforming fragmented garments and organic matter into networks that appear mutually reliant. His sculptures speak of circulation and hybridity: garments as creatures that evolve, adapt, and respond. “It’s about multidimensionality,” Ellis notes. “Hansol is interested in how clothes absorb information and emotion, how they become vessels of time.”

At Château C du Domaine Frey in Aloxe-Corton, the theme In Nature takes shape within the vaulted caves where bottles of wine over a century old rest in the dark. Here, artists Shaan Bevan and Owen Pratt present a performance that merges sculpture and sound. A chemically patinated brass sheet, connected to an electroacoustic transducer and amplifier, hums and quivers as Pratt runs a metal-linked chain across a cymbal. The vibration makes the artwork tremble against the cool air, the resonance mingling with the faint scent of oak.

Further north, at La Folie, among the vines of the Clos de Vougeot, a monumental outdoor sculpture by Dan Graham takes its place. Tight Squeeze, presented in collaboration with Marian Goodman Gallery, is made of two-way mirror and perforated metal. The work undulates like a wave, reflecting the vineyard’s shifting light. Stepping inside, I move through a narrowing corridor where transparency and reflection blur. As Graham does best, the work is both sculpture and architecture, an optical meditation on space.

“Every year we invite around forty artists,” Ellis says. “About fifteen percent come through our open call, selected by an international jury. That’s crucial to me. I don’t want TERRA to be an echo chamber. I want it to be a conversation between emerging and established voices.” This year’s dialogue stretches across continents, connecting artists from Mexico, South Korea, China, and Europe. “There’s this incredible cross-pollination,” she adds. “A shared questioning of what space means, and how we respond to it.”

Building on recent collaborations with Frieze and Domaine Roulot, TERRA’s 2025 partnerships with LVMH Vins d’Exception and Sotheby’s underline its growing ambition. The programme, which opened on 24 October following Art Basel Paris, is on view until mid-November to coincide with the legendary Hospices de Beaune wine auction. “It’s about sensing place,” Ellis reflects. “How do we articulate it, how do we define it, what’s its relationship with memory? For me, that’s what TERRA really is. A living conversation between art and the earth.”



TERRA 2025 is now open and runs across sites in Burgundy, France until 23 November.



Feature image: Dan Graham, Tight Squeeze (2015) at La Folie, Clos de Vougeot, on view as part of TERRA’s 2025 programme. Photo by James Retief