Undiscovered: Photographic Works by Michael Cook
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is delighted to present an intimate exhibition of photographic works by celebrated Indigenous photographer, Michael Cook; a touring exhibition from the Australian National Maritime Museum.
The exhibition offers visitors a contemporary Indigenous perspective on European settlement in Australia and features 10 large-scale images. They shift perspectives around the notion of the European ‘discovery’ of Australia, a land already inhabited by its original people, and reflect on habitual ways of thinking and seeing Australian history.
The images question who really discovered Australia while making reference to what was here, what has been introduced, and the effect this had on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their country, and culture.
The photographs are set on the shoreline looking out to sea, the site that brought the first ships to Australia, and depict an Aboriginal man role-switching with his colonisers. In some images, like Undiscovered 4#, the man is dressed in full colonial style clothing with a tall ship behind him, a strong reminder of European colonisation.
