Recasting Cook

Inverted invasion

Michael Cook, Bidjara photographer:

These people had pale skin, different hair, elaborate clothing and arrived firing muskets. I wondered, what could be an equivalent to that level of shock, something way outside existing experience, and even imagination.

It took Michael Cook eight months to create Invasion, an ambitious photographic series showing an alien incursion into the heart of London.

The artworks turn the tables on the events of 1770. They imagine 1960s London invaded by Australian Indigenous people and animals in alien spacecraft. The whimsical, B-grade horror-movie aesthetic belies the underlying message of a catastrophic attack with earth-shattering consequences for a peaceful, civilised place and people going about their daily lives.

Cook’s calming hand

The dramatic moment when Cook and his crew sailed into Botany Bay and stepped onto the Australian mainland has been endlessly imagined and reproduced on memorabilia and souvenirs. These objects all show parts of that drama.

The shield presents an Indigenous perspective. Cook and his crew remain in their longboats, prevented from landing by men brandishing spears.

The cup and the card show Cook taking control in a potentially volatile situation. He raises his hand to calm a marine firing on the Indigenous men. The jug displays the moment of the raising of the British flag over Dharawal land.

What did Cook really look like?

The figure of Cook we find so familiar today has evolved over time. The wig, the cocked hat, the uniform, the map — whether he is depicted as a man or a small furry animal, Cook is instantly recognisable. Maps and map-making, symbolising knowledge, ownership, access and control, feature in both these collectable objects.

Children's books

The stories we choose to tell our children reflect how we see ourselves and our history. Up until about 20 years ago, children’s books about Cook were simplistic narratives of heroic exploration and empire.

More recent books, such as Alan Tucker’s Too Many Captain Cooks, have started exploring Indigenous perspectives on colonisation, European settlement and dispossession.

1970: Celebration and protest

Many Australians marked the Endeavour bicentenary with enthusiastic celebrations. Re-enactments were staged, statues unveiled and flags raised.

A pivotal moment occurred on 29 April 1970, when the Royal Yacht Britannia sailed into Botany Bay carrying Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Anne. Proceedings included a re-enactment of Cook’s landing, followed by speeches, a tree-planting ceremony, fireworks and a formal reception.

Across the bay at La Perouse the event was marked differently. Declaring a day of mourning, Indigenous activists gathered to throw wreaths into the water.

The Australian, 30 April 1970:

White Australians lit the sky over Sydney Harbour with fireworks — black Australians stared back down a dark corridor into genocide.

See photos from 1970 and 2018 commemorations at Waalumbaal Birri (Endeavour River)

Joining the dots

James Cook, 23 August 1770:

The Latitude and Longitude of all or most of the principal head lands, Bays &Ca may be relied on, for we seldom faild of geting an Observation every day to correct our Latitude.

As the ship journeyed up the coast, Cook mapped all he saw, filling in the gap between the known points of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and New Guinea.

Cook caught only a tantalising glimpse of the country beyond and his map is largely restricted to the coastline and immediate surrounds.

Although the map Cook made is accurate, the impression it gives of a singular, homogenous land obscures the fact that the Australian continent belonged to hundreds of distinct Indigenous nations.