This book documents a walk taken by Ron Terada while on a visit to Cockatoo Island in September 2008. Expecting an exotic, tropical landscape replete with cockatoos and other colorful fauna, Terada instead found himself on an island resembling an isolated penitentiary. Located off Sydney Harbour, Cockatoo Island was indeed once the site of a former prison and shipyard, but on this occasion it happened to be the setting for the 2008 Sydney Biennale.
Presented in a deadpan serial layout, Terada’s Cockatoo Island “blacks-out” any visual evidence regarding the works in the exhibit, the trajectory of his walk, or depictions of the island itself. What remains are the names of each participating artist as presented by the Biennale organizers: on homely, hand-made signs which Terada props up in nondescript sites around the island and photographs, artfully capturing their resemblance to abandoned protest placards.
