Tiyan Baker is an artist who works with installation, photography, video and sculpture. Her practice draws on historical research, language, digital processes and material play to trace unseen relationships between words, place and stories. Centring her Bidayǔh culture in her works, Baker is also interested in things she has unknowingly inherited. Living far from native lands, culture and family, in the midst of the (re)colonisation of Borneo, she explores all that can be mistranslated or lost, and what can manifest in its place. Using an artistic logic that is part salvaging and part speculating, her work engages in imaginative storytelling and world-building to reclaim her vision of her indigenous heritage in the face of intergenerational shame and disadvantage, systematic destruction of culture, and geographical disconnect from family and kins. She has shown her works widely across Australia, and is the winner of the 2022 National Photography Prize awarded by the Murray Art Museum Albury.


She was born and raised on the Larrakia lands known as Darwin and currently lives and works on the Awabakal and Worimi lands known as Newcastle, Australia.




Selected Group Exhibitions and Festivals:


2022    DALAM, curated by Catriona Maddocks, HAUS Kuching, Malaysia

2022    Stray Voltage, curated by Rebecca McCauley, Kings ARI, VIC

2022    We Have Never Been Modern, curated by Robert McDougall, Centre of Contemporary Art, Georgia 

2022    Play Ground, curated by Holly Farrell, The Lock Up, NSW

2022    Personal Mythologies, curated by Sophia Cai, La Trobe Art Institute, VIC

2022    Epistolaristics, curated by Alfonse Chiu, GMBB, Malaysia

2022    a park is not a forest, curated by Salote Tawale, Sydney College of the Arts Galleries, NSW

2021    Makeshift, curated by Taylor Mitchell, RMIT University, VIC

2021    No Show, curated by Lauren Carroll Harris, Carriageworks, NSW

2020    20:20, curated by Michael Moran, Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA), NSW

2020    NSW Visual Arts (Emerging) Fellowship, curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Artspace, NSW

2020    Preppers, online

2019    Preppers, Fremantle Arts Centre, WA

2019    The Freedman Foundation Exhibition, curated by Isabella Cornell, UNSW Galleries, NSW

2017    Almost Doco, curated by Lauren Carroll Harris, RealTime Video Gallery, online



Tours:


Bamboo Paradise, as part of the group show Preppers, supported by Art on the Move, toured at:

  • Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, WA (2020)
  • Katanning Art Gallery, WA (2020)
  • Museum of the Goldfields, WA (2021)
  • Albany Town Hall, WA (2021)
  • The Cannery Arts Centre, WA (2021)



Prizes:


2022    Winner, National Photography Prize, NSW

2021    Finalist, The Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, QLD

2020    Finalist, Fisher's Ghost Art Award, NSW

2020    Finalist, NSW Visual Arts (Emerging) Fellowship

2020    Finalist, Goolugatup Heathcote Digital Art Prize, WA

2019    Recipient, The Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship, NSW

2018    Finalist, The 65th Blake Prize, NSW

2014    Winner, Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award, ACT




Solo Exhibitions:


2022    My mother’s tongue, Bus Projects, VIC

2020    Tarun, Prototype, online

2019    Hard As You Can, Prototype, online

2019    One Million Views, Closed on Monday Gallery, online

2018    Bliss Me, Constance ARI, TAS

2016    One Million Views, Success, WA



Collaborations:


2021    A Sunken Garden, with Lyndon Blue, Girls School Gallery, WA

2020    Panic Buy, with Guy Louden, Sawtooth ARI, TAS, online

2020    Panic Buy, with Guy Louden, Girls School Gallery, WA

2017    Apocalypse Anonymous, with Loren Kronemyer, The Big Anxiety Festival 2017, NSW

2016    One Million Views, with Xanthe Dobbie, Next Wave Festival 2016, VIC



Screenings, Film Festivals and Events:


2022    Portrait of a Place, curated by Lauren Carroll Harris, Kings ARI, VIC 

2022    Composite x SEVENTH, Composite Moving Image Agency & Media Bank, VIC

2022    The Discomfort of Everything, Dogmilk Films, Miscellania, VIC

2022    Powerhouse Late, Powerhouse Museum, NSW

2022    Australian Next Wave, 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, QLD

2021    Crisis Actor, PACT Centre for Emerging Artists, NSW

2020    Hyperlinks URL, Static Vision, online

2020    Lockdown: An Interactive Livestream, Static Vision, online

2020    Hyperlinks, Static Vision, NSW

2019    Biting Morsel, Verge Gallery, NSW

2017    Adhocracy 2017, SA



Selected Residencies and Activities:


2023    International artist’s lab, Medialab Matadero, Madrid, Spain

2021- 2023     Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) Interdisciplinary Lab, online

2022    CUT N POLISH, Carriageworks, NSW

2021    SEM/ALAM Art Lab, Centre for Urban Mythologies + Gerimis Art Project Malaysia, online

2021    disorganising, Bus Projects + West Space + Liquid Architecture, VIC

2020    Residency, Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship, Sarawak

2019    Residency, Chronus Art Centre, on invitation from Pony Express, Shanghai

2017    Residency, Frontyard Projects, NSW

2017    Residency, Adhocracy 2017, SA

2016    Residency, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, WA

2014    Residency, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing



Education:


2012    Bachelor of Fine Arts/Bachelor of Arts, UNSW

2010    Digital Media Studies, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China (exchange program)

2009    Porosity Studio, Donghua University, Shanghai, China (exchange program)




Selected Bibliography:


2023    Sebastian Henry-Jones. Cool Hunter Predictions. Art Collector, Jan - March 2023.

2022    Neha Kale. Root and Branch. Wonderground, Issue Four, Family / Tree.

2022    Dinesh Kumar Maganathan. Orang Asal exhibition in KL highlights a new generation of indigenous artists. The Star.

2022    Verónica Tello. From Impulse to Action, A Park is Not a Forest. MeMO Rewiew.

2021    Pamela See. Exhibition review: The Churchie Emerging Art Prize. ArtsHub.

2021    Madeline Brewer. ‘the churchie’ emerging art prize 2021. The Review Board.

2021    Dinushi Dias. Goldfields museum exhibition reveals what you may have in common with doomsday preppers. ABC Goldfields. 

2021    Phoebe Chen. Radical Ecologies. Carriageworks Journal.

2020    Gina Fairley. Exhibition Review: 2020 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship, Artspace. ArtsHub.

2020     Olivia Bennett. Kissing at the Intersection. Gertrude Emerging Writers Program. Gertrude Contemporary Online.

2020     Barnaby Smith. Tiyan Baker and Guy Louden on the cold poetics of the pandemic. Art Guide.

2020     Preppers and the YOYO (You’re on your own culture). We Make Money Not Art.

2020     5 Questions with Tiyan Baker. Liminal Magazine.

2020     Miranda Johnson. Prepping for Doomsday. Seesaw Magazine.

2020     Ben Rodin. I Feel A Song Coming On. Semaphore.

2019     Stuart Richards. Prototype review: experimental Australian films as poetic diary entries. The Conversation.

2019     Shelley Wang. Artist of the Week. ARC UNSW.

2014     James Purtill. Digital artist Tiyan Melissa Kilie Baker's portraits depict memories of love and loss in Beijing. ABC Radio Darwin.

2014     Jane Somerville. Identities in digital: Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award. ArtsHub.

2014     Siobhan Heanue. Lonely landscapes of love: digital portraiture award goes to young Northern Territory artist. ABC News.




I live and work on the lands of the Awabakal and Worimi people.
This sovereign land was never ceded.
The land I live on always was and always will be Aboriginal land.


@___titanbaker___