Invasion (Giant Birds)

Maker Michael Cook (1968)

Date2017

Object number00055771

NamePhotographic Works

MediumPhotographic Inkjet prints

DimensionsOverall: 1529 × 2239 mm
Image: 1354 × 1999 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection

Terms

DescriptionInvasion (Giant birds) captures the spectrum of British society — a young woman, pregnant and well-dressed, whose waters break beneath her terror; children running or sheltering behind the stair balustrade; a young man whose girlfriend has fallen on the stairs behind him — all fleeing. The setting is Bank Station in the historic city. A bronze statue in the background commemorates the Duke of Wellington on horseback (Australia’s significant culture, with some 60,000 years of history, has not correspondingly been commemorated). 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.