The imaginary lines that we call borders are unsuitable for a warming world. Today climate change impacts are felt worldwide, with regions all over the world affected, with subsequent evidence of a collapse in geography as we know it. When areas become too wet, too hot, where can people go?
Bernadette Kiely presents new large-scale paintings and moving image concerned with the effects of flooding and decay on both the landscape and human lives. This has been an enduring theme in her practice for over 20 years, and now with even more urgency in our present time of environmental distress. Coupled with paintings of natural plant life, and begging the questions, can we rethink our conception of borders, removing them or making them more flexible to embrace migration as a tool for managing global equality and justice, and envision ourselves as a unified global community where we can live in harmony with the natural world?
Exhibition title from the song Woody Guthrie from the album Power in the Blood by Alabama 3.
