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, created through slow acts of physical endurance and meditation. MacEwan cultivates kinships with landscapes and their communities of indwellers, regarding them as true collaborators who carry their own valid subjectivities, histories, and messages. MacEwan's work is empathetic to the psychological pressure of trying to reach into the past to regain control of a future fraught with uncertainty. 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, Pioneer Works (NYC), The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), NYCXDESIGN (USA), and Skaftfell Center for Visual Art (Iceland). In 2022 MacEwan was awarded the NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design, The Philip Hunter Environmental Art Fellowship, The BigCi Environmental Art Award and is a TEDxBoston Planetary Fellow. They have been invited to attend notable residencies including; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (USA), Art OMI (USA) BANFF Center (Canada), NARS Foundation (NYC), and Ox-Bow School of Painting (MI). 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 Ian Potter Cultural Council and is a recipient of The Marten Bequest Traveling Scholarship.