Dilara Miller is an interdisciplinary artist based between Mersin, Turkey and DeKalb, Illinois who received her BFA from The University of Colorado, Boulder. She is currently an MFA candidate at Northern Illinois University with an emphasis in printmaking and ceramic methods. Dilara has had her work featured in juried exhibitions such as the Woman, Life, Freedom exhibition in Chicago, Illinois and the Press Forward exhibition in Houston, Texas; as well as having been published in the MAPC Journal.
Dilara’s work critiques and reflects on the social/cultural effects of being a Turkish-American Muslim woman in today’s society. Through referencing antiquities and how they are presented today, she identifies patterns of hierarchies that exist in human history through an eco-feminist lens. Miller’s work reflects on the role of the artist and the historical testimony we leave behind; like her Girl Birds, she seeks to record her experiences within the Anthropocene as colored by mythic and Islamic teachings. Miller pulls from historic epochs to generate a foundation from which to examine our contemporary treatment of women as related to our current climate disaster. She centers women’s place within the domain of spirituality, as that experience has been historically rejected, despite women’s innate connection to life and the natural word. By retelling these dogmatic stories Miller invites the viewer to pose philosophical questions regarding the generational cycles we participate in. Miller’s work reimagines a world that values our sacred relationship with the Earth, her ecology, and our place within the universe.