Entwined: knowledge & power in the age of Captain Cook
The Portico Library 23 Aug – 13 Oct 2018
Conceived and curated by Dr Helen Idle in collaboration with Dr Peter Kilroy, Menzies Australia Institute, and James Moss The Portico Library.
The motivation for this exhibition was to bring The Portico Library’s first edition of Cook’s journal, published in 1773, into conversation with the rest of the library’s Cook- related holdings.
In doing this we mark the beginning of Cook’s voyage on the Endeavour 250 years ago and foreshadow the indelible marks the voyage would make on the lives of those Cook met.
And so I started by looking around The Library with Cook in mind, his journal in the glass cabinet behind us, and wondering about the period in which Cook set off – what were they thinking ? what were they thinking ? what were they thinking ?
The exhibition draws on the extensive Library collection to illustrate some of the intellectual concerns circulating in Europe in the age of Cook, and the long term impact and influences of these ideas. Ideas that motivated voyages from here to there and back again . . . outwith the pillars of Hercules and the known-knowns of European thinking and their legacies.
Local people in these countries met Cook and his crew in a variety of circumstances. They shared a range of knowledges with the visitors and these ideas and exchanges were brought back on the ships as objects or notations and felt experiences. Despite the instruction to Cook to be respectful of local people in some places cultural exchange did not occur in the proper way. The British assumed authority with devastating short term and long term results.
The expedition on the Endeavour is noted for charting the East coast of what we now call Australia, and for claiming the country in the name of the king in 1770. Today we acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the traditional owners and custodians of that land, and pay respects to the elders past and present.
Our installation of threads imply a connection of ideas, networks of knowledges, that intersect, cause tension, diverge, and converge – making new thoughts and possibilities, connecting across time and space. We invite you to do the same as you move through the exhibition space.
