Invasion (Beach Grubs)
Date2017
Object number00055770
NamePhotographic Works
MediumPhotographic Inkjet prints
DimensionsOverall: 1530 × 2231 mm
Image: 1353 × 1997 mm
Copyright© Michael Cook
ClassificationsArt
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection
DescriptionInvasion (Beach Grubs) by artist Michael Cook shows witchetty grubs of gigantic proportions arriving on a pebbly beach on the Thames, falling in the water and bouncing on the land with violence. Yet amid the chaos and wanton destruction, with the malevolent presence of UFOs in the distant sky, a tall Aboriginal alien carries a young woman to safety, and another is assisted up the ladder from the beach. These actions echo the kindness and relationships struck-up between individuals, Indigenous and European, since the beginnings of their shared history.
HistoryInvasion explores a savage attack — albeit leavened by its irony, flawless beauty of execution, retro-look and dated sensibility — with deliberately heightened drama. These elements assist its fiction, returning the brutal treatment that Australian Aboriginals have suffered, starting two hundred and thirty years ago, at the hands of British colonists. In the current atmosphere of climate change and environmental threat, the incursion of malevolent nature in the form of invading animals also channels a natural subversion that overthrows human dominance and control.
SignificanceContemporary Aboriginal perspective on first contact and colonisation. Draws on the story of Tasmanian man Woorrady, who had been transfixed on the sight of the first French ships.
