schmickcontemporary

Proof of Place
إثبات المكان - இடத்தின் சான்று - ස්ථානය පිළිබඳ සාක්ෂි

Bella Layone
Mia Van Dort Gilmore

26th of March - 18th of April

Curated by Sarah R. Serfati

Bella Layone and Mia Van Dort Gilmore explore images from the perspective of diaspora as fragments of place; lieux de mémoires of the expanding cycle of the past, of the current.

These images serve as guides to orient themselves, their heritage, and their communities within a world shattered between the local and the militarised borders of the global politic.

By untangling these fragments from the linear timelines of Empire, Layone and Van Dort Gilmore evidence that place can be remembered and recovered, even from a distance.

-Sarah R. Serfati

Bella Layone is a Syrian multidisciplinary artist whose practice investigates identity, memory, and belonging, reflecting on experiences of displacement, diaspora, and the ways socio-cultural and political structures shape access and movement. Through photographic practices, spatial interventions and immersive environments, Layone positions the viewer as an active participant, inviting reflection on presence, absence, and the tensions between constraint and freedom.

Mia van Dort Gilmore: Her practice positions the archive as a contested site, drawing on the poetics of recontextualised photographs and archival material to navigate both personal and collective histories. In confronting the loss of knowledge surrounding her Sri Lankan heritage, shaped by the effects of self censorship, her work provides a critical interrogation of identity politics while amplifying the often silenced discourse around brown bodies within colonial systems of surveillance.

Schmick Contemporary acknowledges
the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation upon
whose unceded lands we live and work.

We pay our respects to elders
past, present and emerging.

schmick contemporary