Kate completed a Master of Fine Arts in 2018 at the Victorian College of the Arts where her research focused on critiquing the memorialisation of Captain Cook.
Her Aboriginalities project features in the Melbourne Museum’s permanent exhibition, First Peoples at the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre. Kate presented her first public art commission Near this spot in Gordon Reserve for PHOTO 2021.
Most recently she co-authored BLAK COOK BOOK: New Cultural Perspectives on Cooks' Cottage. A set of provocations with Dr Paola Balla and Dr Clare Land for the City of Melbourne.
Kate has been a sessional lecturer in Alternative Photographic Processes at RMIT University, a Masters program mentor at Photography Studies College and is a regular guest speaker.
Cooks' Cottage camera obscura
The Cooks’ Cottage camera obscura is a temporary site-specific installation inside Cooks’ Cottage in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne.
A live image of the manicured cottage garden that sits on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country will be projected into the interior rooms of the cottage. This artwork operates as a counter-monument and responds to settler colonial mythmaking and contested histories by disrupting Captain Cook's legacy and the mainstream acceptance of monological narratives.
Photography is actively happening inside the camera obscura with the viewer’s body implicated in the action of image and memory creation. As the camera obscura image is upside-down the viewer experiences a plurality of perspectives. This inverted world view challenges the hegemonic idea that there is a universal history.
Altering the cottage in this way invites visitors to the site to reflect upon and engage with the competing views relating to Captain Cook and question the validity of colonial histories defended by such monuments. This public artwork has potential to reach audiences outside the arts community and generate wider public conversation.
Alongside the camera obscura installation there is a proposed First Nations-led public program of talks, performances and workshops for adults and children.