In partnership with Tiffany & Co.

Miah Madden moves with deliberation. Between film sets, curatorial work, and her life in Sydney, she is cultivating a practice defined less by momentum than by meaning. Storytelling sits at its core – not merely as craft, but as inheritance: a means of tracing lineage, holding grief, and articulating connection across generations. Whether on screen or within the gallery, her work reflects a considered sensitivity to selfhood, place, and the unseen threads that bind them. Much like Tiffany & Co.’s HardWear collection, which boldly juxtaposes contrasting materials and forms, Miah’s creative journey celebrates the delicate balance between strength and vulnerability, tension and unity, allowing these contradictions to shape the narrative she tells, both personally and artistically.

JB: You're a storyteller first and foremost. When you look back at your earliest memories, was there a moment where you really felt like you understood that power of storytelling?

MM: I think it probably came from my desire to hear stories about my late Father. I would usually be staying at my Grandparents' house on a Saturday night, all of my siblings and cousins, and we would ask for stories of my Dad. That's all I had to cling on to about him, because he passed when I was so young. Those stories were so transformative for me because they almost felt like inherited memories. In indigenous culture, all of our lore, customs and wisdom is orally passed down. It was all I had to connect with and know him, and then get better at knowing myself.

JB: I guess it's a different process of grief at that age – you're so small, but those stories, they must have made him feel real for you.

MM: It’s almost like those stories created a relationship between us even after he was gone. When I think of my Dad, I feel like we have such a strong connection – I'm quite a spiritual girl. I now think “Oh, Dad would love that” or “Dad would do this”. Without them, they're a stranger.

JB: You were also at a very formative age when you entered the film industry. How do you think that experience shaped your sense of self and who you've become?

MM: I was very receptive to emotions when I was young. I used to call it ‘being very sensitive’, but then my Mum said, ‘No, it’s being highly attuned’.

“Life… it is as brutal and painful as it is joyous and wonderful. Acknowledging the beauty of that allows me to really give in to those experiences and allow the pressure to form something transformative and beautiful.”

JB: I love your Mum already.

MM: When I started to get into acting, it satiated something within me. I was able to better understand why people behaved the way they do because of my work.

JB: You got that first hit of what connection really felt like within yourself.

MM: Yes – and without the lived experience, which feels like a cheat code, you know? I was such a curious child – I just wanted to hear peoples’ stories. As long as they were older than me, I wanted to know what their life was like.

JB: I can't think of you without thinking about your family. Family can bring support, but there can also be expectations. Have you ever felt that pressure or feel like it’s shaped you?

MM: Coming from a family where everyone is very good at what they do, there's definitely a pressure to keep the ball rolling in my own life. But what that I've realised is that the pressure has actually come from me, and that it’s simply a projection of how I feel. I was reading an incredible book called The Courage to Be Disliked. It was about how, in order to truly live your own authentic life, you have to live it being completely open. As a people pleaser, that was a game changer for me.

JB: You often see that with people who have been, I say, born outsiders. Because of that, they've found the strength to forge their own path without the expectation of others. It's inherent to them, naturally. You're a part of a community and a family connection that's so strong. I feel like that's a very different journey for you to find your own way through that.

MM: I find that with my law degree, too. I really wanted to not just act and to be able to give back to the community. I'll graduate next year, but it's been such a long process. I want to work in law reform and work with Indigenous youth, and I've had to remind myself to go slow. Things will never be of the quality that you want them to be when you feel pressure to have everything at a high standard all the time. It’s just not doable. That's another thing I’ve been doing this year: prioritising my nervous system. I'm doing yoga daily, I'm meditating, I'm in the ocean.

"It's so funny – you're such a protector of your younger siblings when they're young. And then, when they get older and they start protecting you..."

JB: When I was young, I used to think that I had to get it all done by 35. And then, once you reach that point, you realise that actually, life is long, you know? If you're lucky.

MM: Women often feel like they've got to race to get everything done. But the most freeing time to be a woman is right now. I'm prioritising me at this time.

JB: When it comes to having resilience, who do you look up to?

MM: I've always said it is my Mum. She had me when she was 22 years old and she was pregnant when my Father died. She’s overcome so much. Her resilience is something that I look up to. And my younger sister, Ruby. It's so funny – you're such a protector of your younger siblings when they're young. And then, when they get older and they start protecting you, it's a really weird dynamic. But she honestly feels like my big sister these days. She's got an unfettered determination, especially in her athletic career – she's about to do the Boston Marathon next week.

JB: And what about your broader creative community? Are there other qualities that take you by surprise and delight you within the community that you see around you?

MM: I had a really incredible experience shooting My Brilliant Career. I became really close with this incredible British actress called Anna Chancellor. I really found her honesty and vulnerability so magnetic. Then also my best friend, Annabelle Wolfe, who I’ve known for almost 10 years. We also met on set. Again, you almost fast-track your closeness by being in these creative spaces. Outside of that creative world, we aren't forced to talk in such a deep and meaningful way.

JB: Creative community really affords that, doesn't it? It's interesting what you say about vulnerability, because it is, in a way, so connected to strength and resilience.

MM: Yeah, I definitely feel like, as a First Nations actor, there is a resilience in bringing the stories of your community and your ancestors to the forefront to be presented on that stage. It’s why I'm really picky about who I tell those stories to, who I'm working with. Vulnerability comes with trust, and I’ve learned to be very selective about who receives my vulnerability.

JB: Your recent curatorial work feels very much like an extension of how you've connected everything. How are you expressing that in a curatorial sense?

MM: Curating is something that came completely out of the blue for me. I saw an opportunity to be a curatorial assistant for the National Indigenous Art Fair advertised and realised that they didn't have a curator and said, “I'll do it”. I love figuring out how this beautiful carving from the Tiwi Islands can connect with this Western desert painting.

JB: It's such an honest way to curate. As you're curating, you're creating links, essentially. What are the words that come to mind when you look at linking those stories?

MM: Lineage. Obviously, we're trying to track these artists and their work back to their song lines and their land. They are almost like a vessel for these stories. With Echoes Tracing Northward at China Heights Gallery, the title came from how, when you come into space, it should feel like a gravitational pull towards one artwork and then to the next. You get the sense that something is woven into these artworks. Weaving is another word.

JB: Are there any points in your career where you can now reflect and think that a pressure point was extremely formative?

MM: When I was shooting My Brilliant Career, I had one of my mentors from the law department pass away. His name was Bill Buckley. And I remember that day I had to do an emotional scene. I was forced to have those emotions on cue, then call cut, then pick it up from here, then do it 10 times over – it was a lot for my nervous system. But in a way it was a really beautiful experience. Grief, and what that has meant with Dad, and how that has translated into my work, has been a beautiful thing. Maybe these really hard things that I go through are just giving me perspective.

JB: Pain can be completely transformative at times. And that’s such a great point about strength and, I guess, opportunity as well.

MM: Life… it is as brutal and painful as it is joyous and wonderful. Acknowledging the beauty of that allows me to really give in to those experiences and allow the pressure to form something transformative and beautiful.

Experience the Noise and Disorder issue in its entirety this May, available on newsstands from Monday 18 May 2026, and through our online shop. Find a stockist near you.

PHOTOGRAPHY Peter Van Alphen @ AP—REPS

FASHION Hannah Cooper

TALENT Miah Madden

HAIR Darren Summors @ AP—REPS

MAKEUP Isabella Schimid

SET AND PROPS STYLIST Tom Anson Mesker

PHOTOGRAPHER'S ASSSITANT Kurt Bingham 

STYLIST’S ASSISTANT Koby Dulac-Daley

Special thanks to China Heights Gallery