Research Background: Photomontages offer artists the opportunity to intermingle fact and fiction and include historical dimensions that can lead to the telling of other narratives or other histories (Singeot, 2020). Bidjara (Australian) artist, Michael Cook (1968 –) makes photomontages that reconsider Australia’s conflicted history and its impact on the political, social and personal of our present day. For Australian Aboriginal artists, personal stories also matter (Martin-Chew, 2019), and this exhibition that surveyed Cook’s practice from 2010–2020 demonstrated how biography has led him to use indigenous/non-indigenous role reversal in his images to interrogate the legacy of colonisation in Australia.
Research Contribution: The exhibition included over 70 works selected from the series’ Through my eyes (2009), Broken dreams (2010), Undiscovered (2010), Stickman (2011), The mission (2012), Civilised (2012), Majority rule (2014), Object (2015), Mother (2016), Invasion (2017), and Livin’ the dream (2020) and traced Cook’s practice over this time. A major publication with essays by Djon Mundine OAM FAHA and myself, and an interview by Hamish Sawyer, was produced to coincide with the exhibition.
Research Significance: This was the first survey exhibition of the work of Michael Cook and was well attended and favourably reviewed by audiences. The exhibition relaunched the UniSC Art Gallery after a period of closure for a major redevelopment and the Covid-19 pandemic. It was well supported with institutions across Australia making works available for loan. The publication received national and international attention and is stocked by art gallery bookshops across Australia and northern Europe.