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HOME 25: Invisible Cities: City of Greater Dandenong announces 16 artists participating in an exhibition spanning cultural and public spaces in central Dandenong.

City of Greater Dandenong

Atong Atem, Three Women, 2019, Ilford smooth pearl print. Image courtesy of MARS and the artist.
Atong Atem, Three Women, 2019, Ilford smooth pearl print. Image courtesy of MARS and the artist.

Located in the most multicultural city in Australia, the exhibition will be uniquely presented across multiple venues spanning several blocks throughout central Dandenong, such as the cultural precinct (Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre, the Drum Theatre, Heritage Hill Museum and Historic Gardens), public spaces and the Dandenong Market. This approach mirrors the rationale of HOME, which tells a shared story through a multiplicity of perspectives.  

Visitors to the exhibition will be encouraged to experience HOME 25: Invisible Cities through an intuitive exploration of artworks and sites over 14 weeks of a multi-sensory interactive exhibition. Revisiting HOME 25 in a diverse urban environment will reward a different exhibition experience each time. As artwork and geography, personal memory, and ‘psychogeographical’ interpretation of paintings, sculptures, site-specific experimental and multimedia and sound installations are explored, visitors will uncover more layers of the Invisible Cities. 

The artists participating are:  Vernon Ah Kee, Alee Afzali, Barat Ali Batoor, Rushdi Anwar, Atong Atem, Belinda Farinaccia, Carla Gottgens, Emily Jacir, Soyoun Kim, Karo Moret Miranda, Kent Morris, Adrian Olguin, Maroulla Radisavic, Hayden Ryan, Ka Yan So, Joseph Williams (Tennant Creek Brio).

Curator Miriam La Rosa from City of Greater Dandenong says, after a nationwide callout, we received 22 submissions from an array of talented Australian artists, all working across different mediums, styles, tones, and voices. Featuring existing and newly commissioned works, the exhibition provides an intimate look at how the concept of "home" shapes our lives and connections.   

This exhibition explores how the idea of "home" influences our perceptions and sense of belonging. It examines language, gesture and sign as markers of identity and potential sources of displacement. Named after Italo Calvino's acclaimed 1972 book, Invisible Cities, the exhibition blurs the lines between reality and fiction, memory and desire, and past and present. It also explores how symbolic communication, such as verbal language and visual maps, simplifies reality – while the complexity inherent in symbols and arbitrary boundaries, like borders, often demands deeper interpretation.’ Dr La Rosa said.  

The exhibition is part of HOME, an ongoing program presented by City of Greater Dandenong since 2016. 

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Image credit: Atong Atem, Three Women, 2019, Ilford smooth pearl print. Image courtesy of MARS and the artist.

IMAGES and ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES to download HERE.  

HOME 25: Invisible Cities, curated by Miriam La Rosa. 24 June – 27 September 2025.

FREE 
 

Locations of artworks in Dandenong:  
Community Art Space, Dandenong Library, Dandenong Market, Drum Theatre, Harmony Square Heritage Hill Museum and Historic Garden, Public Art Space, Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre 

Public Program: 
Spanning the 14 weeks of the exhibition, the public program deepens HOME 25’s exploration of place, identity and belonging through a dynamic mix of performance, dialogue and co-creation.  

Major highlights include: 

  • HOME 25: Invisible Cities' opening event on Saturday 21 June which invites audiences into an afternoon of ritual, storytelling, and embodied geography.  

  • Hakaya of HOME, a day of community storytelling and Punjabi Hip-Hop Cypher, a celebration of diasporic sound. 

  • Reworlding Dandy, developed with RMIT Play Lab, proposes speculative urban futures through collaborative play, happening across Saturdays in August. 

  • September's Home 25 Forum convenes artists and thought-leaders in critical dialogue on displacement, belonging, connection to place and Country. Collectively reimagining what 'home' can mean. 


Curator Biography 
Dr. Miriam La Rosa is a Sicily-born, Naarm-based curator, researcher, and award-winning writer with over a decade of experience in the arts. Her research explores art residencies, alternative histories, and emerging practices, with a strong focus on fostering collaborative, interdisciplinary dialogues that challenge traditional frameworks of artistic production and curatorial practice. Since 2024, Miriam has served as Arts Curator at Greater Dandenong City Council, leading a dynamic program of exhibitions and events across the cultural precinct, with a particular emphasis on Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre. In 2023, she earned a practice-led PhD in Art History and Curatorship from the University of Melbourne, where she examined the ontology of art residencies, as well as concepts of gift exchange and host-guest relationships in cross-cultural projects. Miriam has developed a wide range of art and research projects across Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, and Australia.  

Prior to joining Greater Dandenong City Council, she was the Art Projects & Research Manager at Agency Projects, supporting Indigenous-led initiatives in the arts and environmental sectors. She is a co-founder of the Art Residency Research Collective (ARRC), an international collective of artists, curators and writers joined in study around art residencies' shifting practices. From 2020 to 2024, she served as Treasurer of the Board of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) Australia and between 2019 and 2022 she was a Graduate Research Fellow at the Centre of Visual Arts (CoVA) at The University of Melbourne. Her work has been published in various curatorial and academic journals, reflecting her commitment to the global discourse on contemporary art 

For More Information:  
www.greaterdandenong.vic.gov.au/HOME  
Instagram: @ArtsGreaterDandy 
Facebook: /artsingreaterdandenong

For interviews, images and further information please contact: 
Jasmin de Wolf,
Team Leader Creative City Promotions,
City of Greater Dandenong
 
Phone: 03 8571 5438
Email:
jasmin.dewolf@cgd.vic.gov.au 
 


Contact details:

For interviews, images and further information please contact: 
Jasmin de Wolf
Team Leader Creative City Promotions City of Greater Dandenong
 
Phone: 03 8571 5438
Email:
jasmin.dewolf@cgd.vic.gov.au 

Images

Three Women, 2019, Ilford smooth pearl print. Image courtesy of MARS and the artist..jpg

Atong Atem, Three Women, 2019, Ilford smooth pearl print. Image courtesy of MARS and the artist.
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