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A group of women, incarcerated in a psychiatric institution in Sydney in the 1940s, are some of the unwitting stars of Shadow Land at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.

Anne Ferran, a Sydney artist, described by LWAG curator Felicity Johnston as a ‘museum artist', has honoured the memories of 38 women whose photographs still exist, but whose names and all other details of their lives were unrecorded.

Shadow Land investigates Australia's colonial past, particularly women and children in prisons and asylums. Photomedia artist Anne Ferran works with archival material from museums, creating unusual and often moving works. They include photographs, videos, textiles, text and installations.

She has cropped the black and white photographs of the 38 women so we don't see their faces but we do see their hands, which create powerful images. In another work, Chorus , the artist has photographed 38 women, again faceless and anonymous, who look like they are trying on outsize dresses, but are really hiding behind blankets.

Following the story of a colonial women's workhouse in Ross, Tasmania, the artist found no trace of the buildings, but created a work with photographs of the area.  Many of the women in the workhouse were pregnant and these photographs are also used behind a digital installation that has the names, birth dates and death dates (a very high rate of infant mortality) of the children born there.

But it is not all gloomy.  There are some stunning glowing images of babies' christening gowns.  You would swear the gowns themselves are behind the glass in the frames. Felicity explained that Anne was not allowed to photograph the gowns (and other women's clothing that features in the exhibition) in the museum where she found them.  So she captured them with a 19 ^th century technique called photogramming, where the gowns are laid on photographic paper and exposed to the light. They are at once shadowy and ghostly but somehow beautiful and bright.

The artist has donated to the University an installation: a cabinet with light boxes in the drawers, with more images of women's and babies' clothing, related to childbirth.

Huge super-real photographs of institutionalised women, based on classical poses, are another representation of femininity.

As a departure from the theme of women, are a video, a book and images of historical sites and waterways in east London.

Anne Ferran was in residence at the Fremantle Arts Centre last year and compiled The Prison Library , a book of images of the disbanded library at the nearby Fremantle Prison.

Anne Ferran: Shadow Land is at the gallery until 19 April.  It makes an excellent lunchtime excursion on a warm day.