Invasion (Giant Lizards) 2017

Maker Michael Cook (1968)

Date2017

Object number00055772

NamePhotographic Works

MediumPhotographic Inkjet prints

DimensionsImage: 1529 × 2233 mm
Overall: 1354 × 1998 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection

Terms

DescriptionInvasion (Giant lizards) refers to Alfred Hitchcock's iconic The Birds (1963), with a school group pursued by three colossal lizards. 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.