[From] foreign syntax.
I'm a grey and blue landscape. An assemblage of disparate scenes. 
All the plants and algae, bacteria, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals.
…. the animals confer that it will happen.
…. a range of harsh screeches and metallic whistles.
…. the moment of crisis has come.
— Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison

A Hemline of Sky Through Smoke, A Hemline of Forest Through Smoke, and A Hemline of Water Through Smoke (2020) is a set of artists’ books by RMIT alumni Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, acquired in March by National Library of Australia, State Library New South Wales, and University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library.

Edition set 75/100 has also been shortlisted in the 2020 Libris Awards: The Australian Artists Book Prize at Artspace Mackay.

Because through action comes hope, Gracia and Louise created a series of artists’ books to nestle beneath a line from a poem by Larry Levis. These artists’ book require the reader to take action in order to see the full collage. The reader needs to tear open the perforated fore-edge of each page spread to see through the smoke, to see what lies beneath, or ahead, or in the past.

Echoing Sir David Attenborough’s words that “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon”, without action, all will be lost.

The hemline of smoke is both a representation of bushfire smoke caused by the megafires of 2019–20, and a reference to the disappearance of our natural world due to land clearing, species extinctions, and the climate change emergency.