Lismore-based Wiradjuri, Irish and German multidisciplinary artist Karla Dickens is known for her found-object practice, often placing overlooked or discarded objects into new contexts to challenge Australian culture, contest histories and agitate for change.
A ‘lock-on’ is a non-violent – and powerful – civil disobedience tactic used by protesters, where bicycle locks, handcuffs and other DIY materials secure them in their place of protest. Here, Dickens’ assemblages link Indigenous histories of dispossession and invasion through her personal experience, ecofeminism, and provocative visual language, as legacies of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy are interrogated.
Karla Dickens, Rise and Fall 5, 2024, photography on tarpaulin, 350 × 233cm. Courtesy the artist and The Lock-Up, New South Wales
The Lock-Up
23 August to 16 November 2025
New South Wales
