Cook Book

(2017-2019)

Cook Book explores how traditional Aboriginal cultural practices intersect with Western knowledge and tools in the 21st century. For hundreds of centuries, Aboriginal people have passed down stories through generations, preserving timeless knowledges and ways of life despite the relentless onslaught of invasion and forced assimilation.

Today, our cultural practices, deeply rooted in natural systems and environments, have woven Western technologies and tools into their fabric. The same practices, with the same outcomes, now incorporate contemporary tools during the ‘making’ process. This blending creates space to revisit and reflect on our traditions while affirming their ongoing vitality in a fast-moving, colonised world.

The works themselves have been colonised, much like we have, shaped and altered by outside forces, yet they resist, just as we do, holding fast to the core of our cultural practices. At first glance, the collages appear playful, cheeky, and fun, inviting a lighthearted reading. But beneath the humour lies a deeper weight that reveals itself with closer inspection. The captions draw from Gunditjmara dictionaries and language documents, naming simple everyday actions and requests. In translation, the English language loses its melody and subtlety, exposing a raw, unvarnished honesty.

Through these phrases and instructions, Cook Book reveals how our timeless knowledge and practices have evolved, adapting to sustain cultural continuity in the 21st century despite vast change.