Is your north really the north? If you've ever used a compass, its 'magnetic north' is only ever so slightly west of 'true north', contingent as it is on the inner rumblings of the Earth's outer core. 'True north' is a fixed point on the globe, aligned with the geographic North Pole. In case you're curious, 'true north' is what our smartphone maps use by default.

This week, our quest for the 'true north' guides us through a selection of events and issues across the globe. At COLLECTIBLE New York, works by a range of designers and collectives added substance to many longstanding disciplinary conversations about collectible design within art and design ecologies. At the London Design Festival, sculptor Saint Clair Cemin showcases nature-inspired bronze works infused with an 18th century aesthetic at David Gill Gallery, and these

find alignment with another time, in the present. In Venice, the biennial exhibition 'Time Space Existence', held at the European Cultural Centre, brings to mind the floating city's unrelentingly fragile balance between land and water. Geography, read as science and art, undergirds 'Photographic Geomancy' at Fotografiska Shanghai, which accommodates contested taxonomies and decolonial reckonings within its broad ambit.

The Earth's insides may stir, but 'true north' stays where it is, mapped to geography and not to volume or density. In its steadiness, it gestures at a way forward, a clear orientation, even in the face of uncertainty and disruption. Where does your inner compass lead you?