Reimagining Captain Cook: Pacific Perspectives

Abstract

• The accompanying publication to the British Museum exhibition Reimagining Captain Cook: Pacific Perspectives, held from 29 November 2018 – 4 August 2019. On the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s extraordinary voyages of exploration, this publication reflects on and charts the enduring legacies of his encounters with Pacific peoples. Objects collected and images made on or associated with the voyages are explored alongside artworks created by contemporary artists from the Pacific region. Together, they reveal that understandings of history are rarely agreed and always shifting, while Cook and the impacts of his voyages are reimagined as complex, contentious and unresolved.