We are on fire (Not in a sexy way)
2020
Medium
fibre-tipped pen on fire extinguisher
Measurements
25.0 × 16.0 × 160.0 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, NGV Supporters of Indigenous Art, 2021
© Karla Dickens / Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia
Gallery location
Gallery 1
Ground Level, NGV Australia
About this work
Protest plays a prominent role in Karla Dickens’s work, with the artist typically utilising collage and assemblage to highlight political and environmental issues to raise personal concerns about race, spirituality, gender and sexuality. We are on fire (Not in a sexy way) was created in response to the devastating Victorian Black Saturday bushfires of 2019–20, and the subsequent media silence about the devastation, impact and clean-up efforts due to coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a repurposed vintage fire extinguisher inscribed with her tongue-in-cheek text, Dickens deploys humour as a tool to critique the way society reacts or fails to react to catastrophic incidents.