Diana Baker Smith
The Lost Hour
2021
Single Channel HD Video
15:50 minutes

The Lost Hour is a video essay exploring the significant yet relatively unknown artist and dancer, Philippa Cullen (1950-75). The work reflects on how art, and its engagements with archives, can help us remember Australian conceptual artworks in the present. It focuses on Cullen’s performance, 24-Hour Concert (1974), which involved over 30 artists from across Australia – many of whom are now major figures. Visiting the sites where Cullen staged the performance, and where her archives now reside, Baker Smith performs embodied acts of remembering and misremembering, acknowledging that many of Cullen’s archives have deteriorated or been lost. Grappling with Cullen’s elusiveness in Australian art history, Baker Smith gestures toward alternative methods for valuing her practice and writing art history.

Work Credits
Videography: Kate Blackmore and Robert Nugent
Video Editing: Diana Baker Smith
Sound Composition: Bree van Reyk
Sound Mix: Bob Scott
Colourist: Julien Chichignoud
Voice Over: Diana Baker Smith, Kate Blackmore and Fernando do Campo
Recollections: Grame E. BrownAleks Danko, Julie Ewington, Stephen Jones, Greg Schiemer

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The Lost Hour was first presented at Artspace as part of Tasks to be composed for the Occassion, curated by Bree RIchards. The project was supported by the NSW Governement in association with Create NSW. and by UNSW Art & Design.