One fine day
Gunditjmara/Djabwurrung artist Hayley Millar Baker uses photography to interrogate the way memories are made through acts of remembering and misremembering. Here she documents a day in her life.
7am: Toast for breaky with the kids. My husband Ryan is on nightshift at the moment so it’s just me, Maeve and Quinn for breakfast.
8am: While I get ready, the kids play. Quinn has just learnt how to crawl and is enjoying adventuring throughout the house.
10am: Arriving at Fancy Films. I first met Keryn (the founder, owner and managing director of Fancy Films) back in 2018 when I was working with Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School (MITS). I was leading a term-long workshop and Fancy Films was shooting a documentary on the process.
11am: In the editing suit at Fancy Films. So many choices, variations, ways to cut each scene. Only time will tell how the film comes together! The editing processes are much the same as the way I construct my collages — building a strong narrative is the priority and that’s achieved through fitting the visual puzzle pieces together in a certain way that best supports the storyline.
2pm: Stopover to visit Nan and drop off some books. I recently bought two books on the history of the Djab Wurrung people and land by Ian D Clark and Nan is lending them. Her family tree is in the book along with letters and newspaper articles about them. Nan collects all family related documents and one day I will inherit it all to keep building on and eventually pass on to my grandchildren.
4pm: Back home and into my office to re-watch an hour worth of selects from Nyctinasty to make sure I haven’t missed any gold shots that need to be included in the final cut. I’ll be re-watching the selects on repeat over the next few days before I go back into the editing suit.
5pm: The workday is now finished and while I hang out with Maeve in her room, I take a photo of her, and she takes a photo of me on her Frozen slide show camera. Maeve says she is an artist too because she makes pictures like me.
