Civilised #5, 2012, Michael Cook
Inkjet print on archival Hahnemuhle cotton paper, 100cm x 85cm
Provenance: Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.
Of Bidjara heritage, Michael Cook is a photomedia artist who reimagines colonial focused histories into contemporary Indigenous portraits. Reversing historical discrimination, he works to disrupt traditional racial and social expectations. Cook invites viewers to speculate Indigenous cultures living at the forefront, even a majority, rather than manipulated to live within the confines of a white man’s world. Cook’s work has been acquired by institutions including the British Museum, National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Art Gallery of Western Australia, as well as displayed during the 56th Venice Biennale (1).
Captain Cook wrote "these people may truly be said to be in the pure state of nature, and may appear to some to be the most wretched upon the earth; but in reality they are far happier than... we Europeans.” Michael Cook created the Civilised collection in response to evaluate what it means to be civilised and why the European colonisers viewed the native Australian population as inferior when they landed. The Civilised series looks at the four European countries that visited Australia before and in the early stages of colonialisation: The Netherlands, Spain, England and France; and imagines what would have happened if the Indigenous Australians were recognised as civilised (2).