Hayley Millar Baker's 'Eternity the Butterfly' Explores Indigenous Haunting
Hayley Millar Baker's film 'Eternity the Butterfly' (2025) is the third in her series of moving-image works chronicling contemporary Indigenous haunting. The film features a luminous female figure named Eternity who, through breath and movement, summons black monuments and birdsong before toppling them with a spray of ochre. Baker, a Gunditjmara, Djabwurrung, Nira-Bulok Taungurung, Anglo-Indian, and Portuguese-Brazilian artist, uses horror film tropes to build unease and assert the presence of the spirit world. The work is part of 'The Veil' exhibition at Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, running through 1 November. Previous films in the series are 'Nyctinasty' (2021) and 'The Umbra' (2023). Baker's practice reasserts First Nations sovereignty through personal and collective memory.
Key facts
- Eternity the Butterfly (2025) is the third film in Baker's series on contemporary Indigenous haunting.
- The film features a luminous female figure named Eternity who controls monuments and birdsong with her breath.
- Baker belongs to the Gunditjmara, Djabwurrung, and Nira-Bulok Taungurung peoples, and has Anglo-Indian and Portuguese-Brazilian ancestry.
- The film is on view in 'The Veil' at Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, through 1 November.
- Previous films in the series are 'Nyctinasty' (2021) and 'The Umbra' (2023).
- Baker first gained prominence with her black-and-white photographic series 'A Series of Unwarranted Events' (2018).
- She was included in the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial in 2022 at the National Gallery of Australia.
- The films use horror genre pacing to build unease and depict the spirit world.
Entities
Artists
- Hayley Millar Baker
- Mikala Tai
Institutions
- Buxton Contemporary
- National Gallery of Australia
- National Indigenous Art Triennial
Locations
- Melbourne
- Australia