NEW ANNUAL OPENING EVENT

In Conversation with Karla Dickens
Saturday 27 September, 1 – 3pm
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HOT CHIPS & HOT TOPICS

Join renowned Wiradjuri contemporary artist Karla Dickens in conversation with Bundjalung and Worimi journalist Phoebe McIlwraith, for the opening weekend of New Annual! Over hot chips and even hotter topics, Dickens and McIlwraith reflect on the shifting role of artists in the face of the climate crisis—from creative resistance to acts of care, and the urgent need for truth-telling in turbulent times.

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A lock-on is a powerful, non-violent civil disobedience tactic used by protesters – using bicycle locks, handcuffs and other DIY materials – to secure themselves in their place of protest.

Honouring the legacy of non-violent protest, Karla Dickens presents her first solo exhibition in Muloobinba/Newcastle for New Annual, a “lock-on at The Lock-Up”. Addressing themes of climate crises and ecofeminism, Locked On interrogates the legacies of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy, and their effects on post-contact Aboriginal experiences and the natural world.

ABOUT KARLA DICKENS

Karla Dickens is an artist of Wiradjuri, Irish and German heritage, living and working in Goonellabah, Lismore, on Bundjalung Country in New South Wales. Through her multidisciplinary practice – spanning painting, photography, video, collage, sculpture and installation – Dickens brings a black humour to her unflinching interrogation of subjects such as race, gender and injustice. Described as a ‘found-object’ virtuoso, her practice often places overlooked or discarded objects into new contexts to interrogate Australian culture, contest histories and agitate for change. Dickens has exhibited throughout Australia and abroad since the early 1990s. In 2023, she opened a major survey exhibition spanning thirty years of her art practice, Embracing Shadows at Campbelltown Arts Centre. Her forthcoming solo exhibition, Rise and Fall, will open shortly at Bondi Pavilion as well as her presentation within the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art.

Other recent significant exhibitions include the inaugural Universe Pavilion of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. RISING: Shadow Spirit, Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, curated by Kimberley Moulton (2023); Return to Sender, Carriageworks, Sydney (2022); 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, Sydney (2020); Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2020); Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2020); Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2017); and The National 2017: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney (2017). Dickens’ work is held in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Museum of Australia, Canberra; National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; National Art School, Sydney; Australian Museum, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney among others.