Verge Gallery: You’re Welcome? Exhibition

Curated by Billy Bain 
Featuring Serwah Attafuah, Mostafa Azimitabar, Billy Bain, Gosha Heldtz, Jacquie Meng, and Heath Nock 
📆 23 January – 28 March 2025 

What does it mean to be welcome in ‘Australia’?  

Curated by Dharug artist Billy Bain, You’re Welcome? explores the ways in which a group of young Sydney-based artists form, express, and interrogate ideas of what it means to be welcome. Through non-traditional, figurative portraiture, these artists navigate their own multicultural identities and create both physical and digital space for community, despite an often hostile and unwelcoming wider Australian consciousness.  Running concurrently with Invasion Day and The University of Sydney’s Welcome Week, You’re Welcome? celebrates and platforms these artists’ unique stories and perspectives — from the political to the surreal and humorous.

Events Lineup:

Exhibition Launch
📅 Thurs 23 Jan: 6-8pm

Performances: The Path by Fei Gao
📅 Wed 19 and Thurs 20 Feb: 12pm, 1:30pm & 3pm 
📅 Thurs 20 Feb: 6pm
More info ↗

Artist Floor Talk: Moz Azimitabar
📅 Thurs 6 Mar: 11am – 12:30pm
More info ↗

Curatorial Floor Talk
📅 Thurs 27 Mar: 1pm – 2pm 
More info ↗

Image credit: Billy Bain, Stolen Land (detail), 2024. Ceramic sculpture with underglaze, glaze and metallic lustres, fabric and wood.