George Sanchez-Calderon at Deering Estate.

For several years now, the Deering Estate in Cutler Ridge has experimented with exhibiting contemporary art. It started off with a show that featured large-scale sculptures spread across the sprawling grounds of the historic estate, curated by sculptor Ralph Provisero. This October, it moved entirely indoors to the villa and smaller house with another intriguing and fun show, “Back of Beyond,” curated by Jane Hart.

The thematic concept encompasses several ways that the artists included in the show could explore. The title references an Australian expression about the land beyond civilization, the extreme Out Back. The Land Down Under was one of the last places physically explored by Western powers, but Hart also incorporated the fictional exploration of Jonathan Swift’s 1726 “Gulliver’s Travels.” Gulliver, during the glorified Age of Discovery, manages to have some major misadventures, in which the “advancement of man” is called into question.

Oliver Sanchez at Deering.

There are some complex and whimsical ways that this theme is addressed in the exhibit. Remember, this is an estate founded in an almost fantastical “outback” — the sub-tropical end of the U.S. — by a 19th-century mogul, so the contemporary video and painting are mixed in with old preserved portraits, furniture, architecture. And it is done so in a subtle way. The video and self-portrait of artist David Rohn dressed as a king fits in with the antiquated setting in the stately main house, and yet also stands out. George Sanchez-Calderon’s colorful painting of a Spanish galleon almost colliding with a chandelier also fits in with the aura of the waning days of empires. Oliver Sanchez also has a great sculpture that references those early 20th-century years when there still seemed to be lands and cultures to “discover,” with pages from books that the artist’s librarian brother-in-law found about sailing “The South Seas,” as Polynesia was once called, such as a 1922 book “The Isle of Vanishing Men: A Narrative of Adventure in Cannibal-Land.”

Barron Sherer created a fabulous video compilation of animated clips of the Gulliver story going back almost 70 years, while William Keddell has a stereoscopic view of a tiny Lilliputian and a giant pencil as the sole piece for one of the bathrooms.

Gulliver’s Pendulum by Temisan Okpaku.

In maybe the best space at Deering to show, the wine cellar, which almost resonates with past ghosts, Temisan Okpaku has made a site-specific, delicate red-laser piece suggestive of a navigational tool. He describes the thought process behind the work as reflecting the social commentary that author Swift had tried to make with his hapless captain Gulliver.

“Since a basement is literally the foundation of a structure, I thought using contemporary tools used to determine both true vertical and horizontal would be a way to develop the connection between how people align themselves on both the personal or micro level and the larger macro level. … Since Gulliver’s tales are that of a lost seaman, I thought the connection between tools of navigation and tools for building structural foundations like levels and a plum blob, used to determine a vertical, was fascinating.

“I think is was fitting of Swift to have Gulliver be a failed doctor and a failed captain. He could not heal the individual of ailments, nor could he lead men successfully on their journey.”

There are many more works from a variety of artists, including those from Down Under— it’s worth the effort to journey down to the Deering Estate to view all these artistic explorations.

“Back of Beyond” runs through Nov. 10 at the Deering Estate, 16701 S.W. 72nd Ave., Miami; 305-235-1668 ; www.deeringestate.org.