ABOUT — Diana Baker Smith

Diana Baker Smith is an artist based on Gadigal land in Sydney. Working across film, video, performance, photography and text, her practice traces the movements through which histories are produced and transformed. Grounded in feminist methodologies, her work draws on archival research, fieldwork and collaboration. Her recent works follow bodies, objects and materials across sites and landscapes, exploring histories of colonisation, migration and labour.

Selected solo exhibitions and commissions include Trace a Piece of Water (Mosman Art Gallery, 2026), A Colonial Habit of Growth (Sydenham International, 2026), This Place Where They Dwell (Penrith Regional Gallery, 2024), Falling Towards Another (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2024), A Score for Reconstruction (Newcastle Art Gallery, 2024), She Speaks in Sculpture (UTS Art Gallery, 2022), The Lost Hour (Contemporary Art Tasmania, 2022) and Tasks yet to be composed for the occasion (Ideas Platform, Artspace, 2021).

Selected group exhibitions include And Also, Artbank Gallery, Melbourne (2026); The Residents, Vaucluse House, Museums of History NSW, Sydney (2026); Giving Voice, Liverpool Powerhouse, Sydney (2025); Photosynthesisers: Women and the Lens, Te Uru, Auckland (2025); Circles of Dialogue, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo (2023); Video Commission, Ngununggula, Bowral (2022); Know My Name: Australian Women Artists, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2021); Australia: Antipodean Stories, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2020); Divided Worlds: Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2018); Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2017); and The Future Is Already Here – It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed, 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016).

Diana is also a founding member of the artist collective Barbara Cleveland, whose works are held in institutional collections including Artbank, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and Monash University Museum of Art.

In 2025, Diana was awarded the Major Acquisitive Gosford Art Prize, and in 2024 was the recipient of the Judy Wheeler Commission at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. She has undertaken international residencies in Ireland, Korea and China, and was awarded the Creative Australia London Studio Residency at Acme Studios in 2018.

Diana is currently undertaking the inaugural Vaucluse House Creative and Cultural Residency through Museums of History NSW. She is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at UNSW Art & Design.

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