Artist Statement/ Biography

Jemila MacEwan creates intimately interwoven earthworks, film, sculptures and performances within existing landscapes. Their large-scale works offer space to feel into acute emotional states experienced when confronting anthropogenic extinction and climate change such as shame, grief, fear, loneliness, and hope. MacEwan treats the landscapes as animate collaborators who carry their own valid subjectivities, histories and messages. To meet the challenges of climate change and anthropogenic extinction, MacEwan asserts that our understanding of ‘we’ needs to extend beyond the human, by recognizing our role as co-collaborators in the story of life on Earth. Shedding the layers of denial that separate humans from nature reveals the more-than-human-world as a diverse network of powerful and animated forces deserving our attention and trust.

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MacEwan is a recipient of The Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship 2020 and the BigCi Environmental Award 2021. They have performed and exhibited widely including; ARoS Museum (Denmark), The Australian Consulate-General (NYC), Pioneer Works (NYC), The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), NYCXDESIGN (USA), Skaftfell Center for Visual Art (Iceland) and The Castlemaine State Festival (Australia). They have been invited to many residencies notably; BANFF Center for Arts and Creativity (Canada), NARS Foundation (NYC), Ox-Bow School of Painting (MI), Sculpture Space (NY), and is the founder of the performance residency Land Falls (NY). MacEwan has been generously supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Australia Council for the Arts, Café Royal Foundation, the Dame Joan Sutherland Fund, and the Ian Potter Cultural Council.