![Image: Michael Cook, [Livin’ the dream (Welcome Home)], 2020. Courtesy the artist.](https://photo.org.au/api/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/MC_Livin-the-dream-Vacation_2020-200x132.jpg)
![Peta Clancy, [Undercurrent], 2018-19, inkjet pigment print. Courtesy the artist and Dominik Mersch Gallery.](https://photo.org.au/api/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Undercurrent_Peta-Clancy-200x142.jpg "Undercurrent_Peta Clancy")
Michael Cook (AU)
Livin' the dream
23 January 2021 - 14 March 2021
![Image: Michael Cook [Livin’ the dream (Welcome Home)], 2020. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY.](https://photo.org.au/api/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2-MCLivintheDreamWelcomeHome-200x133.jpg)
Image: Michael Cook Livin’ the dream (Welcome Home), 2020. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY.
Image: Michael Cook Livin’ the dream (Welcome Home), 2020. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY.
When
23 January 2021 - 14 March 2021
Region
Regional
Venue
Accessibility
Wheelchair access, Accessible Toilets, Accessible Parking
Michael Cook offers a retake on Australian history by imagining a contemporary Indigenous community with Aboriginals living the lifestyle prescribed by white norms. Carefully choreographed images reflect on notions of truth and identity, and consider how art and images shape history and cultural memory.
Highlighting disjuncture between the reality of Indigenous life and the white Australian dream/ideal, he raises the questions ‘what makes a person civilised?’ The images explore the ongoing effects of colonisation and cultural marginalisation, and suggests how different history might have been if those Europeans had realised that the Aborigines were indeed civilised.
