Karla Dickens is a magnetic storyteller and unapologetic provocateur. Her striking assemblages meld and layer domestic detritus in abstract compositions that are piercing commentaries on Australian culture. As above, so below 2024 encapsulates Dickens’s ongoing interrogation of the legacies of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy, and their effects on post-contact Aboriginal experiences and the natural world. The artist’s densely layered assemblages embody both a statement on our volatile situation and an urgent call to action.

Dickens’s installation for the Asia Pacific Triennial brings together three recent series of work. The ‘Disastrous’ series 2022 confronts the breadth of environmental devastation across Australia. Each of its collage-paintings explores a pressing issue affecting the Earth, such as rising temperatures, exploitation of resources, drought, extinction, floods and coral bleaching. Filled with arresting representations of death and destruction, these works highlight the failure of political powers to address persistent signs of ecological emergency.