“Down-Under” the Veil of Invisibilization: The Narrative of Aboriginal Subjectivity in Michael Cook’s Photomontages.

Abstract

This article aims at demonstrating Aboriginal photographer Michael Cook’s ability to address the Aboriginal subjects of his photomontages in their very absence, as a paradoxical way to counter the primeval colonial drive which erased the traditional custodians of the Australian land. As a consequence, focusing on the photomontage and layering techniques, I will demonstrate how Cook exposes and debunks former colonial epistemologies while making two different visions of the world coexist. Far from being synonymous with occlusion and opacity, layering paradoxically becomes the privileged means of unveiling and discovering the recurrent invisibilization processes that systematically targeted Indigenous Australians in History. As a consequence, it is not so much about an expansion than a reconfiguration of the visual field that is targeted by Cook in his art. Finally, I will endeavour to show that by rehistoricizing invisibilization, Cook’s photography eventually advocates reconciliation, while repositioning an aestheticized Indigenous subject at the centre of his work.