National Photography Prize 2022 Interview - Winner Tiyan Baker
Winner of the National Photography Prize 2022, Artist Tiyan Baker discusses her series of work.
The National Photography Prize brought together twelve artists from across Australia who challenged and extended photographic language and techniques.
In this series of photographs, the images were taken on Bidayǔh native lands in Sarawak, in rivers where Baker’s mother played as a child and on ancestral farm lands.
These images are autostereograms, also known as Magic Eye images, a nostalgic optical illusion technology that was very popular in the 1990s during the artist’s childhood. Embedded in these images are forgotten or rarely used Bidayǔh words that are about wandering, collecting and foraging.
Serian Bidayǔh language has hundreds of terms for activities that speak to a daily rhythm of moving through the jungle and working intimately with plant life. In current semi-Industrialised Bidayǔh society, these words are almost never used and have been left behind.
