In the past, Jemila worked as a designer for film, dance and theatre. Eventually, she found that design was too limited a medium for the the expression of her own vision. A few directors encouraged her to “go solo” and she began to make her own work. She still enjoys collaborating with choreographers from time to time. “Most of my work sits between sculpture and performance,” says the artist. Her recent body of work considers the impact of meteorites, volcanoes and glaciers as a way to understand what it is to be human. She explains, “These natural phenomena require an understanding of the world through vast time-scales; elemental and material forces capable of dramatically reshaping the environment. In my work, they act as a counterpoint to the conscious and intentional impact that humans have on the planet.” Known to insert herself into the landscape, Jemila enhances her body in ways that make her both responsive and vulnerable to the external world. Blades of grass become whisker-like extensions of skin. Jemila encases herself in paper and becomes a surface for children to paint on, or in another work, a ghostly silver form that mirrors and refracts her environment. These sculpture-based performances are expressions of the artist’s spiritual experience of nature. “For me, the spiritual exists as a poetic bridge between realms of culture and nature, revealing a conflict and reconciliation of the two.” Having made many of her works during residencies, the pieces are often site-specific. The rest of the time, Jemila works out of her studio apartment in Brooklyn with her partner (a meteorologist), her cat and 52 houseplants. “My practice is always working at the edge of the edge of what I understand; it exists in a rapidly expanding universe.” She’s nearly always working on at least 5 projects at a time. Upcoming, she’s developing a new performance piece for an exhibition organized by Chashama’s ChaNorth residency and in spring she will be creating new work in Iceland in response to the mood of impending catastrophe as the island anticipates the largest volcanic eruption Europe has seen in 100 years.