Inhabit Our Everything / Nothing

Inhabit Our Everything / Nothing is a MAMA collection exhibition curated by artist Hayley Millar Baker. The exhibition is informed by Millar Baker’s understanding of photography as an art form that is not only documentary in nature but also possesses transformative qualities. Presented are artworks that “go beyond mere representation to offer deep reinterpretations of personal and cultural identities."

“Inhabit Our Everything / Nothing brings together artists whose works critically engage with the colonial archive, reclaim histories, and challenge the mechanisms of visibility and erasure. The selected artists employ photography as a medium of resistance and reclamation, subverting dominant narratives by inserting Indigenous, diasporic, and marginalised perspectives into the frame. These works interrogate the power structures inherent in visual culture, questioning who is granted agency in representation and the role of images in shaping collective memory. The exhibition elaborates on the history of possession, encompassing land, culture, and bodies, thereby revealing the tensions between individual and collective identity, displacement and belonging, as well as visibility and invisibility.” – Hayley Millar Baker.

Inhabit Our Everything / Nothing is presented as part of nginha: gathered here, a season of programming offering new perspectives on the MAMA collection.

About the curator
Hayley Millar Baker’s work is deeply influenced by her Aboriginality, belonging to the Gunditjmara, Djabwurrung, and Nira-Bulok Taungurung peoples through her maternal lineage, and Anglo-Indian and Portuguese Brazilian ancestry on her paternal side. This union of cultural influences shapes her perspective, grounding her practice in the exploration of Indigenous resilience and the empowerment of ancestral connection.