Flinders Street Station is an iconic location for stories from the spirit world

Woven into this are ideas of temporary space and time, of dreams and ghostly ecologies, she says, like the bunyip or certain creatures on Country that protect and warn and sometimes wreak havoc.

“There’s light and dark moments, there’s things we think about in terms of malevolence and warning, there’s also spaces of healing and protection, but there’s also humor, that beautiful mix,” says Moulton.

It is a national show featuring 15 Indigenous artists from northern Arnhem Land down to Hobart including Karla Dickens, Judy Watson, Warwick Thornton and the Mulka Project with the late Mrs Mulkuṉ Wirrpanda. Fourteen pieces are new INCREASING commissions.

The full program of the festival has just been released and includes 185 events, works by more than 400 artists, 35 commissioned works and 12 world premieres.

Millar Baker hopes her film will remind us to listen to and honor our instincts.

“Especially on the south-east coast of Australia we have deadlines, people ask this and that, we also have our private life which is a job in itself, the busyness and chaos of it all dulls that intuition and that inner voice,” she says.

“My films have no dialogue, it’s just movement and watching, [it’s through] this stillness and stillness, this still, empty space, this intuition speaks.”

Baker has always had a fascination with horror films, partly because of her experiences with the supernatural. She subverts many of her classic tropes in her work, particularly by reversing the role of women: her characters are confident, powerful, and calculated.

“My practice has a very strong focus on feminine magic and specifically indigenous feminine magic and where that lies today in the present day,” she says. “That magic that still flows through women, whether it’s through intuition or a deeper connection to spiritual realms.”

her first movie Nyktinastycurrently shown at Gertrude Contemporary in Preston, was commissioned by Hetti Perkins for the National Gallery of Australia as part of the third annual Triennial.

Flinders Street is an iconic place, says Moulton: a station for 169 years, a building for 113 years and a central riverside gathering place for Kulin from time immemorial.

“Placing our work in this very colonial space, but remembering what’s beneath the concrete is really important,” says Moulton. “We bring all of these cultures to the heart of Melbourne to share with our audience the breadth of our cultural practice, but also [to show] how fun and cool it is.”

RISING runs from June 7th to 18th. Hayley Millar Baker’s film Nyktinasty is at Gertrude Contemporary until March 26th.

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