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40 Earth and Elsewhere | Contemporary Works from the Collection

Earth and Elsewhere | Contemporary Works from the Collection 41

Simryn Gill

/ Malaysia b.1959 /

Dalam

(detail) 2001 / Type C photograph on paper / 260 sheets: 32.5 x 31.2cm (each) / 260 sheets: 23.5 x 23.5cm (each comp.) /

Acc. 2003.075.001–260 / The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2003 with funds from The Myer Foundation, a project of the

Sidney Myer Centenary Celebration 1899–1999, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation

S imryn G i ll

Dalam

2001

One of Simryn Gill’s interests is to investigate how people

define themselves in relation to family, community and nation.

Dalam

, meaning ‘deep’, ‘inside’ or ‘interior’, is the title of a

series by Gill that documents the living areas of homes across

Malaysia. It was the result of two questions posed by the artist:

‘What does the “inside” of a place look like?’ and ‘Do many people,

held together by geography, add up to the idea of a nation or

single unified group?’ In the absence of human figures, there is

a suggestion of their ‘ghostly presence’ here, through which the

enigmatic aspects of

dalam

become evident; the viewer may

imagine the people who live in these homes, knowing that they

are privileged to have access to these private, often humble and

certainly personal places.