Eternity the Butterfly

(2025)

12:03 minute single-channel film.

To request access to view Eternity the Butterfly, email hayleymillarbaker@gmail.com

Eternity the Butterfly reflects the transcendence narratives of Aboriginal peoples, grounded in their deep spiritual connections to ancestors and the colonial horrors they continue to endure. Eternity, the butterfly, embodies the cyclical view of life, death, and rebirth central to Aboriginal philosophies. Her relationship with the monuments, serving both as ancestral guides and symbols of colonial oppression, captures a potent duality. Through ritual calls to the ancestors, empowered by her profound connection to the land, Eternity constructs the monuments as vessels, offering momentary housing for the spirits and allowing them to manifest and offer guidance.

Through layered metaphors, the work honours the strength, agency, and enduring wisdom of Aboriginal peoples. The monuments, impermanent structures built to briefly host ancestral spirits, are intentionally fragile, crafted by human hands and vulnerable to dismantling. Their transience mirrors the instability of colonial systems, exposing a shared fragility that stands in stark contrast to Eternity’s enduring presence and the resilient continuum of her existence.

Subtle yet profound in its political commentary, Eternity’s soul-shattering call to the ancestors reverberates through the natural world. Through meditation, breath, and deliberate movement, she embodies physical, spiritual, and cultural continuity, rooted in both resistance and transformation. Viewers are invited to reflect on the unseen labour of cultural endurance, the spiritual wounds caused by colonialism, and the transformative power of the Aboriginal voice.

Commissioned by the University of Melbourne, supported by Creative Australia and Creative Victoria.