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Jemila MacEwan is an environmental artist known for their earthworks, installations, performances and expanded cinema projects. Their work takes an expansive view of time and geography, often created through slow acts of physical endurance. MacEwan invites audiences to take an interspecies perspective for working through the overwhelming emotional toll of reckoning with anthropogenic climate change and mass extinction. MacEwan was awarded the NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design, The Philip Hunter Environmental Art Fellowship, The BigCi Environmental Award and is a TEDxBoston Planetary Fellow. MacEwan has presented work internationally including at; ARoS Museum (Denmark), The Australian Consulate-General (NYC), Pioneer Works (NYC), Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), Cambridge University, and Skaftfell Center (Iceland). They have been invited to attend notable residencies including; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Art OMI, Yaddo, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, BANFF Center for Arts and Creativity, and Ox-Bow School of Painting. Their work has been published in Art in America, Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Hyperallergic, and SFMoMA. MacEwan has been generously supported by The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Creative Australia, The Ian Potter Cultural Council and The Marten Bequest Traveling Scholarship.
Published on April 1st, 2025. Artist responses collected in months previous.
Talk about some of the logistics of your art practice. What systems do you have in place to help streamline your workflows?
One of the most impactful strategies for managing multiple projects simultaneously has been delegation, which allows me to produce more ambitious and higher-caliber works. While I can’t afford a studio or part-time staff, I’ve learned to be resourceful. I rely on a wide-reaching community of friends with diverse skill sets. Rather than trying to learn every skill and do everything myself, I subcontract tasks that require expertise beyond my own. For instance, I’ve commissioned a friend skilled in 3D graphics to create renders of large-scale ideas and collaborated with a nature documentarian on a complex, long-term timelapse film project. I’ve traded grant-writing advice with a dancer friend for movement coaching and contracted a solar-power design expert to affordably build a solar system for a remote outdoor installation. This approach often feels like having a large studio staffed with highly skilled assistants. The interdisciplinary nature of my community, combined with my genuine interest in diversely creative people, has been a tremendous advantage. These collaborations not only expand my capabilities but also deepen the richness and quality of my work.
What is some advice for someone who does not have any experience who would like to pursue a career like yours?
You are going to have to invent your own way.
You are going to have to be courageous.
You will be rewarded the more authenticity you bring to your work and your relationships.
Only you will know the answer.
If you can predict the outcome, it's not worth your time.
Get used to asking ‘Why not?’
Build and take care of your community – your creative work is collective.
Bring integrity to every thought, word and action.
What was the lowest point in your art career and how did you overcome those adversities?
Artists need low points. Artists will experience things as low points for a few reasons: failing to meet their own creative expectations, constant rejection, receiving harsh criticism from someone they respect, or maybe a really important professional/creative relationship fell apart. There are so many things I have experienced that send me into a doomy art crisis, where I feel like everything I’ve ever done is terrible and I am a terrible artist. Every time this happens, the most important thing for me has always been to reach out to friends who support me and believe in me. Friends who are wise and make me laugh. I’ve had some hilarious responses over the years. One friend I texted, "Not doing well. Having an art crisis :(" and she replied, "Lucky you!"—reminding me that it is precisely these moments, when we are shown the error of our thinking and actions, that we are invited to grow, change, and become better artists. Now, every time I am in an art crisis, I trust that the hardest emotions lead to the best ideas. Being an artist you learn to always creatively respond to the present moment.
How did you come into the type of artwork you are doing now?
The space and resource limitations of living in New York impacted my work from the moment I arrived. I could not afford a studio, but I had access to this incredible iconic city. This pushed me to make my first major work in the USA, which was a performance piece called Maiden Grass Voyage (2013). For this work, I wore a fine mesh bodysuit embedded with blades of maiden grass, which acted like whiskers or antennae conducting touch between me and my surroundings. I traveled by foot and subway from the northern tip of Manhattan to the south, and the whole experience was documented with black-and-white photography. This project defined a lot of firsts for me—my first land-responsive work, my first live durational performance, and my first ecological work. The experience continues to influence my practice. On the 10th anniversary of Maiden Grass Voyage, I created Seed Meditation (2023), another land-responsive ecological performance in Manhattan. I realized this work last spring, for which I sat in Washington Square Park, from sunrise to sunset for 10 days, holding a seed in my hand throughout its germination process.
What was an epiphany in your art practice that took you to the next level?
As a land artist, the greatest epiphany for me was realizing that the entire planet can be the site for my work. This insight inspired my current project, 12 Mountains, a multi-channel video installation. For this piece, I’m filming 12 mountains around the world using year-long timelapse sequences. The work will be presented as a one-hour, multi-channel projection installation shown in the round. This will be shown as a one-hour multichannel projection installation in the round. The movement of the sun and passage of the stars traversing across the screens allows us to feel Earth's rotation and the hemispheric tilt of the seasons. The project also incorporates interviews with human communities who regard these mountains as their ancestors. Their stories and wisdom will be interwoven with the visuals, creating a dialogue between nature and humanity. This epiphany expanded my understanding of scale and interconnectedness, challenging me to think globally while remaining deeply rooted in the local stories that give meaning to the land.
Talk about some of the logistics of your art practice. What systems do you have in place to help streamline your workflows?
One of the most impactful strategies for managing multiple projects simultaneously has been delegation, which allows me to produce more ambitious and higher-caliber works. While I can’t afford a studio or part-time staff, I’ve learned to be resourceful. I rely on a wide-reaching community of friends with diverse skill sets. Rather than trying to learn every skill and do everything myself, I subcontract tasks that require expertise beyond my own. For instance, I’ve commissioned a friend skilled in 3D graphics to create renders of large-scale ideas and collaborated with a nature documentarian on a complex, long-term timelapse film project. I’ve traded grant-writing advice with a dancer friend for movement coaching and contracted a solar-power design expert to affordably build a solar system for a remote outdoor installation. This approach often feels like having a large studio staffed with highly skilled assistants. The interdisciplinary nature of my community, combined with my genuine interest in diversely creative people, has been a tremendous advantage. These collaborations not only expand my capabilities but also deepen the richness and quality of my work.
What is some advice for someone who does not have any experience who would like to pursue a career like yours?
You are going to have to invent your own way.
You are going to have to be courageous.
You will be rewarded the more authenticity you bring to your work and your relationships.
Only you will know the answer.
If you can predict the outcome, it's not worth your time.
Get used to asking ‘Why not?’
Build and take care of your community – your creative work is collective.
Bring integrity to every thought, word and action.
What was the lowest point in your art career and how did you overcome those adversities?
Artists need low points. Artists will experience things as low points for a few reasons: failing to meet their own creative expectations, constant rejection, receiving harsh criticism from someone they respect, or maybe a really important professional/creative relationship fell apart. There are so many things I have experienced that send me into a doomy art crisis, where I feel like everything I’ve ever done is terrible and I am a terrible artist. Every time this happens, the most important thing for me has always been to reach out to friends who support me and believe in me. Friends who are wise and make me laugh. I’ve had some hilarious responses over the years. One friend I texted, "Not doing well. Having an art crisis :(" and she replied, "Lucky you!"—reminding me that it is precisely these moments, when we are shown the error of our thinking and actions, that we are invited to grow, change, and become better artists. Now, every time I am in an art crisis, I trust that the hardest emotions lead to the best ideas. Being an artist you learn to always creatively respond to the present moment.
How did you come into the type of artwork you are doing now?
The space and resource limitations of living in New York impacted my work from the moment I arrived. I could not afford a studio, but I had access to this incredible iconic city. This pushed me to make my first major work in the USA, which was a performance piece called Maiden Grass Voyage (2013). For this work, I wore a fine mesh bodysuit embedded with blades of maiden grass, which acted like whiskers or antennae conducting touch between me and my surroundings. I traveled by foot and subway from the northern tip of Manhattan to the south, and the whole experience was documented with black-and-white photography. This project defined a lot of firsts for me—my first land-responsive work, my first live durational performance, and my first ecological work. The experience continues to influence my practice. On the 10th anniversary of Maiden Grass Voyage, I created Seed Meditation (2023), another land-responsive ecological performance in Manhattan. I realized this work last spring, for which I sat in Washington Square Park, from sunrise to sunset for 10 days, holding a seed in my hand throughout its germination process.
What was an epiphany in your art practice that took you to the next level?
As a land artist, the greatest epiphany for me was realizing that the entire planet can be the site for my work. This insight inspired my current project, 12 Mountains, a multi-channel video installation. For this piece, I’m filming 12 mountains around the world using year-long timelapse sequences. The work will be presented as a one-hour, multi-channel projection installation shown in the round. This will be shown as a one-hour multichannel projection installation in the round. The movement of the sun and passage of the stars traversing across the screens allows us to feel Earth's rotation and the hemispheric tilt of the seasons. The project also incorporates interviews with human communities who regard these mountains as their ancestors. Their stories and wisdom will be interwoven with the visuals, creating a dialogue between nature and humanity. This epiphany expanded my understanding of scale and interconnectedness, challenging me to think globally while remaining deeply rooted in the local stories that give meaning to the land.
Find Jemila MacEwan on Instagram
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