Araluen Arts Centre is proud to host an intimate touring exhibition of photographic works entitled Undiscovered – Photographic works by Michael Cook with the celebrated Aboriginal artist Michael Cook set to attend the official opening this Friday 18 May at 6pm.

Comprising 10 striking large-scale images, Undiscovered shifts roles and perspectives around the notion of the European ‘discovery’ of Australia, a land inhabited by its first peoples for tens of thousands of years.

Department of Tourism and Culture’s Senior Director of the Araluen Cultural Precinct, Dr Mark Crees said the Araluen Arts Centre is thrilled to present Undiscovered – Photographic works by Michael Cook, a national touring exhibition presented by the Australian National Maritime Museum.

“Undiscovered offers visitors a contemporary Indigenous perspective on European settlement in Australia by presenting a series of images that takes historical ‘scenes’ that most of us would have grown up with and challenges our perspective through a profoundly effective transposition of agency and voice,” Dr Crees said.

“Michael Cook’s extraordinary images reflect on our (often) habitual, reflexive ways of thinking about and seeing our history and understanding the genesis of our modern nation.”

The images are set on the shoreline looking out to sea, the site that brought the first ships to Australia, and the photos 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, an indelible reference and reminder of European colonisation. At other times, as in Undiscovered #7, the colonial clothing is removed revealing the strength and resilience of Indigenous Australians before and after colonization. Throughout the exhibition the images also show Australian native animals as well as modern introduced objects including an armchair, bicycle and wheelbarrow.

Whilst far from the literal edge where Cook’s images are set, the questions this exhibition raises are no less relevant and no less important for Central Australian society, meditating on issues around first contact, European settlement and ‘discovery’ of Australia - what was here, what has been introduced, and the effect this had on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their country and culture.

“This is an important exhibition for the Araluen Arts Centre and brings the contemporary photographic practice of Michael Cook to Central Australia, where it can be viewed and considered in relation to a growing contemporary Aboriginal photographic arts practice from this region,” Dr Crees added.

“It is also wonderful to welcome an exhibition from one of our national collecting institutions in the Australian National Maritime Museum and wonderful to welcome a curator from that museum and the artist himself to Alice Springs for the opening.”

Undiscovered – Photographic works by Michael Cook will officially open this Friday 18 May at 6pm and will be on display until Sunday, 24 June 2018.                                                                                                

Opening night will feature the artist, Michael Cook and the curator of the Australian National Maritime Museum, Beau James for a question & answer style floor-talk, discussing in greater depth Cook’s practice, the creation of the work and its central themes with audience participation encouraged.  

This exhibition is supported by the National Collections Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government Program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians.

Media interview - Araluen Cultural Precinct Senior Director, Dr Mark Crees 08 8951 1126
Media contact - Department of Tourism and Culture - 0428 052 647