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144 pages, 29 x 23 cm, open-sewn Swiss bind, softcover
Perimeter Editions 109
ISBN: 978-1-922545-46-6
AU $49

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Michael Cook
Conditioned

For Michael Cook, photography is a means of reimagining and rewriting. His language is embedded in questions of what was, what is, what might have been, and what could be. Conditioned, the Bidjara artist’s first book for Perimeter Editions, draws upon key series from the last decade to prise open histories and imaginaries that simmer between Indigenous and European experiences, perspectives, and consciousness.

Cook works in an almost cinematic mode, using the camera as an elaborate choreographic and narrative device, meticulously layering and editing his images from countless shoots on location. The resulting images are quietly virtuosic. Soft, painterly tones and fastidious compositional details provide a filmic backdrop for historical pathos, speculative futures, imaginary leaps, and unrestrained what-ifs. They veer between the sumptuous and the stark, the historical and the speculative, the political and the playful.

Amidst Conditioned’s lushly printed plates – which are punctuated by abstracted texts and phraseology – Cook invites us on a kaleidoscopic trip through Indigenous parliamentary takeovers, luxury European shopping sprees, autobiographic asides, and colonial inversions – where Aboriginal characters assume the role of alien invaders, and supersized Australian wildlife wreak havoc upon iconic London streets. It is a journey of reflection, resistance, and freewheeling imagination.

Supported by Jan Murphy Gallery.


144 pages, 29 x 23 cm, open-sewn Swiss bind, softcover
Perimeter Editions 109
First edition of 800
ISBN: 978-1-922545-46-6
Publication date: July 2025
Printed by Kopa, Lithuania
Published by Perimeter Editions,
Melbourne, Australia
Editor: Dan Rule
Design: Beaziyt Worcou for Perimeter Bureau
Lithograpy: Mariska Bijl, robstolk® amsterdamMichael Cook (b. 1968) was adopted at birth into a non-Indigenous family. While cut off from the connection to his biological and social Aboriginal heritage, he was fortunate enough to have an adoptive family who embraced his Aboriginality and empowered him to imagine what that might mean for him and for the world he lived in. Michael’s adoptive mother was a passionate social worker and activist, involved in fighting for Aboriginal rights and environmental causes, including the Fraser Island Defence Organisation. Her passion for social justice and her deep empathy for Aboriginal people inform the foundation of Michael Cook’s practice. Michael Cook won the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography People’s Choice Award, and was also a finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize. His artworks are held in all major Australian collections, and in significant international collections, including the British Museum, London; The Museum of World Cultures, Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht; LA County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, USA.

For international wholesale and distribution enquiries, images and information, please contact Perimeter Editions, Melbourne:
hello@perimetereditions.com
+61 3 9484 8101

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