Karla Dickens: Recovery Mission

Karla Dickens' exhibition 'Recovery Mission' is a powerful exploration of climate crisis from a First Nations perspective, offering a poignant commentary on resilience and the fight for a better future. Central to Dickens's practice is an interrogation of the legacies of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy, and their effects on post-contact First Nations experiences and the natural world. 'Recovery Mission' brings these concerns into sharp focus, engaging with climate crisis and ecofeminism through a selection of works drawn from three recent bodies of work: 'Recovery Mission' (2024) – which the exhibition takes its title – 'Rise and Fall' (2024/5), and 'Keeping It Together' (2024).

The 'Rise and Fall' series responds to the floods that devastated the artist's hometown of Lismore in regional NSW in February 2022, and reimagines mermaid mythologies with a post-apocalyptic twist. While 'Recovery Mission', 'Keeping it Together' and related works utilise assemblage, collage and installation to transform found and discarded materials – domestic detritus, personal ephemera and cultural debris – into densely layered works that deliver incisive and often darkly humorous commentaries on Australian culture.

Recurring motifs of the sphere and water connect the works in this exhibition, highlighting Dickens' ongoing engagement with cycles, environment and intergenerational endurance.