Fatima Killeen
CRITICAL DATES
OPENING EVENT: 1 May 6–8pm
ON VIEW: 1–24 May
GALLERY HOURS: Fri–Sun 11–4pm
Western nations have always created industries for the benefit of their own economies. They continue to use harmful chemicals to grow toxic farm produce, invest in the production of weapons or actively dump piles of fast fashion throwaways into the landfill of developing countries under the name of “International aid relief”.
These practises create massive environmental devastation by leaving behind contaminated soil and waterways, as well as divided communities. Most of the people in these communities are engulfed in civil violence and economic uncertainty. They are left on their own to bear the brunt of conflict and have no basic human rights, nor the opportunities to make their lives better. They are also the ones who suffer the enormous effects of climate change and unbearable predicaments
Unfortunately, from the western point-of-view, this is the price of progress at the mercy of powerful nations. Their addiction to profiteering hinders finding solutions to the decline of the environment - nature to them is a source to be exploited. The on-going campaigns of green washing manipulate people and stand in the way of any realistic resolve to adapt to the climate crisis and the looming danger we will face following the denial of our obligations to care for the environment.
Lands of countries in zones of conflict and overlong occupation have sadly become the testing ground for the paraphernalia of modern warfare leaving behind contaminated military landfill. The need to work collectively in facing up to the imminent crisis has become even more urgent. We need to co-exist and connect with nature in finding solutions to our environmental dilemma - we are part of the same organism that is breathing life into us.
Fatima Killeen was born in Casablanca and studied at Les Beaux Arts in Morocco and Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. Killen moved to Australia in 1994, undertaking a bachelor of Fine Arts at ANU in printmaking and drawing and graduated with First Class Honours in 1997.
Killeen was awarded the Wattan Art Prize at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney (2001), National African Australian Award for Professional Excellence (2015&2016), International Honour Award for Moroccan Art & Culture (2017), Kenitra and the Australian Muslim Artists Art Prize (2021).
Image:
Fatima Killeen, We are what we grow, 2023, collograph on paper, 850x600mm