iArtspaceWoolloomooloo
Hayley Millar Baker: No Spectacular Soul
Multi-screen video installation critiquing systems that decide whose lives are deemed worthy of protection, centring Indigenous voices asserting rights to resistance and survival.
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Preview: written before the show opened
One of the figures in this video installation is a child, and Artspace says that is deliberate: the child tests the assumption that only adults, or already recognised witnesses, get believed. Hayley Millar Baker, a Gunditjmara, Djab Wurrung and Taungurung artist, made it as a major solo commission for the Main Galleries.
There's no single screen to face. The work runs as one continuous moving-image environment, so you walk through it while image and sound shift around you, and no spot gives you the authoritative view. The soundtrack is anchored by a spoken-word poem Millar Baker wrote, in which Indigenous voices gather to assert the right to resistance, dignity and survival.
Entry is free, Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm. The galleries reopen after installation on 23 October; the free opening night is Thursday 22 October, 6 to 9pm, with registration. CAO Yu's Ideas Platform show and Dana Claxton's banners on the building open the same day.
Look for
The spoken-word poem
Listen for Millar Baker's own poem anchoring the soundscape, where Indigenous voices gather as a collective force asserting the right to resistance, dignity and survival.
The child on screen
Look for the child among the projected figures, placed there to question why testimony only counts when it comes from adults or recognised witnesses.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Rainy Days
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Image credits
8
- Hayley Millar Baker: No Spectacular SoulCourtesy of Artspace
- Nolan: OriginsCourtesy of Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Definitive DupainMax Dupain / Google Art Project, Public domain
- ArtspaceUser6499 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Art Gallery of New South WalesBidgee / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5 AU
- Hyde Park BarracksJ Bar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- State Library of New South WalesBidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Australian Museumwuppertaler / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0