Nature Morte (Blackbird) by Michael Cook, 2021

Nature Morte (Blackbird), audio description, duration 3.26 minutes

The title of this artwork is Nature Morte (Blackbird), by the artist Michael Cook, made in 2021. The French term nature morte translates to dead nature or still life, which is an artistic genre featuring inanimate objects. This artwork is a photograph, printed as an inkjet print on paper, measuring 91 centimetres high and 122 centimetres wide unframed. It is part of the Natures Mortes series, which uses still life imagery to explore death and loss caused by colonisation. It is presented in a plain, narrow black frame.

The photograph features objects arranged on a tabletop in a very dark space, set against a black background. The objects are dimly lit up by a light source from the front. The table is draped in a loose dark red cloth, and with a small crumpled brown cloth at the centre front. The largest object is a set of vintage brass scales; they fill the centre and are tilted down slightly to the right. Perched on the right-hand horizontal beam is a male black cockatoo with a red tail, facing forward. On the plates of the scales are low piles of sugar cubes. The left plate also holds cut sticks of raw sugar cane.

Behind the scales, from left to right, is a metal kerosene lantern and a small wooden barrel. A female black cockatoo with a yellow tail is on the barrel facing towards the scales, her head turned forwards. Beneath her, a long sheet of brown paper with marks on it unravels downwards. Behind both plates of the scales is a bunch of wilted flowers in muted colours. A couple piles of brown hardcover books support both the centre of the scales and two small musical instruments on the far right – a lute with a viola leaning on it.

Across the front of the tabletop and the scales, from left to right, are many smaller objects. These include white sugar cubes in a small open metal chest, beside a stack of small blue and white teacups and saucers. Next is a ring of large metal keys and small metal scoops. At the centre sits a large cane toad. After the toad there are broken fragments of blue and white ceramic and a scrunched music sheet.

The black cockatoos symbolise blackbirding. This was an inhuman practice where colonists kidnapped and forced South Sea Islanders to work as indentured labour in Australia’s sugar industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The wilted flowers, together with the cross-like form created by the vertical pillar and horizontal beam of the scales, evoke mourning and acknowledge the suffering and countless deaths of South Sea Islander and First Nations peoples.

Michael Cook is a highly celebrated Bidjara artist living in southwest Queensland. He worked as a photographer commercially in Australia and overseas for twenty-five years before he began to make art photography in 2009, driven by an increasingly urgent desire to explore issues of identity.

This artwork is courtesy of the Logan Art Collection.

Image credit: Michael Cook, Nature Morte (Blackbird), 2021 Inkjet print on paper, Edition 7, 91 × 122 cm
Logan Art Collection. Donated 2026.Photograph Louis Lim, image courtesy Logan Art Gallery.