Player Count One: Studies of Bung Sadung in Fortnite
Player Count One: Studies of Bung Sadung in Fortnite (2025) was commissioned by Goolagatup Heathcote as part of the 2023 Digital Art Prize. It exhibited at Goolagatup Heathcote in February-March 2025 as part of a duo show “Fall Damage”, in collaboration with artist Jason Phu. It also exhibited at the Australia Centre of Moving Image as part of Game Worlds from September 2025 to March 2026, and is currently touring as part of that show.
“Playing with ideas of ownership, authenticity and access, Tiyan Baker’s series Player Count One: Studies of Bung Sadung in Fortnite (2025) sees the artist recreating and building upon ancestral lands in present-day Sarawak, Malaysia. Using the widespread industry and hobbyist video game engine Unreal Engine 5, Baker has dutifully sculpted and inhabited her matrilineal homeland of Bung Sadung and the surrounds in a custom Fortnite map. Her digital print works Top view of Bung Sadung and surrounding villages (2025) and the Ancestral longhouse triptych (2025) are studies in traditional architectural construction and statements of geographical reclamation, building upon Indigenous lands in a custom environment bereft of their contemporary colonial context.
Fortnite is a game of conquest: a 100-player contest to dominate the island through an arsenal of weaponry and militaristic structures. Adapting this language and gameplay loop, Tiyan Baker deconstructs the aim of a typical round of the game to comment on the contested history of Bukar Bidayǔh lands. For centuries, Bukar Bidayǔh peoples and their heartland have been subject to external colonial rule from the Bruneian Empire in 1512 to the British protectorate Raj of Sarawak until 1941 and Japanese Occupancy in World War II and the current constitutional monarchy of Malaysia. Baker’s moving image work Building a longhouse at the site of the first Bukar Bidayǔh settlement (2025) records the artist’s avatar occupying Bung Sadung in an act of defiant Indigenous sovereignty, rendered in the online battleground of the defining video game in our modern era.” - written by curator Con Gerakaris for “A Tear in the Fabric”, at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, 2025.
Artwork details:
1. Tiyan Baker, Building a longhouse at the site of the first Bukar Bidayǔh settlement, 2025, digital video, sound, bamboo, nuts, bolts, sisal rope, wire
2. Tiyan Baker, Ancestral longhouse - view from inside topography at night, 2025, digital print mounted on dibond.
3. Tiyan Baker, Ancestral longhouse - view from inside topography at midday, 2025, digital print mounted on dibond.
4. Tiyan Baker, Ancestral longhouse - birds eye view in the morning, 2025, digital print mounted on dibond.
5. Tiyan Baker, Ra-ung (sunhat): custom umbrella design for Fortnite, 2025, polystyrene, resin, acrylic paint, canvas, wooden dowel, bamboo, various lace trim and ribbon, wooden beads, bias binding, seaweed twine
6. Tiyan Baker, Ra-ung (sunhat): custom umbrella design for Fortnite, 2025, digital print mounted on dibond.
7. Tiyan Baker, Durian bomb: custom shockwave grenade design for Fortnite, 2025, 3D print, cast resin, dye.
8. Tiyan Baker, Top view of Bung Sadung and surrounding villages, 2025, digital print mounted on dibond.
3D Artist and Technical Lead: Jean Luc-Schmid
Seamstress: Rhona Manning (my mum)
Player Count One: Studies of Bung Sadung in Fortnite , 2025, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Ra-ung (sunhat): custom umbrella design for Fortnite, 2025, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Durian bomb: custom shockwave grenade design for Fortnite, 2025, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Building a longhouse at the site of the first Bukar Bidayǔh settlement, 2025, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Top view of Bung Sadung and surrounding villages, 2025, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Ra-ung (sunhat): custom umbrella design for Fortnite, 2025, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Player Count One: Studies of Bung Sadung in Fortnite, 2025, detail view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Ancestral longhouse - view from inside topography at night, 2025, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Ancestral longhouse - view from inside topography at midday, 2025, installation view, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Ancestral longhouse - birds eye view in the morning, 2025, installation view, installation view, Goolagatup Heathcote, WA. Documentation by Aaron Claringbold.
Player Count One: Studies of Bung Sadung in Fortnite, 2025, installation view, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW.
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.