Sheltering is more than physical protection of the body. Cross cultural Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens proposes understanding sheltering as connections to country, cosmos, and a guide to one’s collective life. Her artwork Spacey Blak Emu represents exactly this: sheltering as belonging, as being part of a community, and to locate oneself locally and temporally by looking at the night sky. It conveys knowledge about navigation, rhythms of the year, sustaining communities and to be responsible custodians of the land. Being embedded in communities, landscapes, waterscapes, and skyscapes links “sheltering” to a sense of belonging, a timeless and resilient spiritual connection that reverberates in Dickens’ poem that surfaces as part of her artwork on the constellation of the Emu in the Sky.
The Emu in the Sky stretches across the Milky Way as a “dark constellation,” acknowledging Aboriginal Australians as the first astronomers who focus on the entire sky, including dark patches between stars. This constellation is vital for First Nations peoples’ connection to creation stories, the emu’s breeding journey and links to the different seasons.
Central to Dickens’ practice is to interweave cross-cultural objects to engage non-Indigenous audiences to her First Nation perceptions, histories and ways of seeing. Here she carefully weaves together objects representing Aboriginal astronomy, Australian First Nations knowledge and storytelling, and her community, with a high-resolution image of the Milky Way, produced by a European scientific mission. The sculptural element of the dark constellation is built with black textiles and glass crystals, a poem and the celestial drawings are in dialogue with an image captured by ESA’s Gaia mission. Through this approach, Dickens hopes to engage with the widest audience possible as she carefully weaves together various materials from different cultures.
The artist invites the audience to drive into the depths of Australia’s first people dreaming as we explore the darkness in between. The ancient consciousness speaking to the importance of darkness holds as much weight in 2025 as we work together to foster global unity, environmental sustainability and a respect for human life and a sense of safety in belonging.
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 graduated from the National Art School, Sydney, with a Diploma of Fine Arts in 1993 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2000. She has exhibited throughout Australia and abroad since the early 1990s. Recent significant exhibitions include Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2017); The National 2017: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney (2017); Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2020); 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN (2020). In 2023 Dickens major survey exhibition Embracing Shadows opened at Campbelltown Arts Centre, spanning thirty years of practice. Dickens’ work is held in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, National Art School, Australian Museum, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.
.
Milky Way image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; Acknowledgemetn Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium; A. Moitinho / A.F. Silva / M. Barros / C. Barata, University of Lisbon, Portugal; H. Savietto, Fork Research, Portugal
Curation by Claudia Schnugg
Special thanks to: Lily Hibberd, Roland Aigner
The production of the artwork and the presentation of Karla Dickens and Spacey Blak Emu received support from Fondation Opale, Create NSW, Creative Australia and the Australian Embassy in Italy.
