Jemila MacEwan with 'Dead Gods' installation. Image credit: David B. Smith
 
Jemila MacEwan is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in New York. MacEwan was born in Scotland to Sufi parents, and immigrated to Australia as a child, where their upbringing intertwined scientific, mythological and spiritual ways of learning from the land. MacEwan is known for their intimately interwoven earthworks, sculptures and performances that build mythological narratives around meteorites, volcanoes, fault-lines and melting glaciers. These stories engage with the emotional complexity of humanity’s destructive impact, to the planet and to itself, as a way to understand what it means to be human within the Holocene Extinction. MacEwan asserts: 

"For us to meet the challenges brought on by a world in change, we must shed the layers of denial that separate humans from the natural environment to recognize nature as a diverse network of powerful and animated forces, that deserves our attention, trust and respect." - Jemila MacEwan
   
MacEwan has performed and exhibited extensively internationally including at; 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 Castlemaine State Festival (Australia). In 2022 MacEwan was awarded the NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design, The BigCi Environmental Art Award and was invited by TEDxBoston to give a presentation as a Planetary Fellow. They have been invited to attend many residencies notably; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (USA), BANFF Center for Arts and Creativity, (Canada), NARS Foundation (NYC), and Ox-Bow School of Painting (MI) and is the founder of the performance process residency Land Falls (NY). They have been invited to host and participate in public talks and discussions on themes of intercultural practice, mental health, animism, and environmental accountability. Their work has been published in Art in America, Boston Globe, SFMoMA Open Space, MONDO Arc and Artist Profile Magazine. MacEwan has been generously supported by The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Australia Council for the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Dame Joan Sutherland Fund, The Ian Potter Cultural Council, Café Royal Foundation, The Graduate Women of Victoria and is a recipient of The Marten Bequest Traveling Scholarship.