In 2020, Australia will mark 250 years since James Cook’s arrival to Australian shores in 1770 with a circumnavigation of Australia on the replica ship HMB Endeavour. The initiative of the Australian National Maritime Museum will provide an opportunity to reflect on the significance of the voyage in Australia’s history, including the impact it has on Indigenous Australians.
In 2018, 250 years on from the Endeavour’s departure from Plymouth, it feels right to revisit Cook’s legacy, but with fresh eyes looking through different lenses. Over time, Cook has become a symbol, as much myth as man. Why? The National Library of Australia has long had a strong collecting interest in Cook’s voyages, offering rich pickings to investigate these questions. Yet Cook and the Pacific is its first full-scale, international exhibition about Cook.
Plants that were salvaged after Captain Cook’s Endeavour ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef nearly 250 years ago, will be photographed to create never before seen images in a permanent digital record. It’s part of a project that will carefully photograph 1.4 million specimens at the National Herbarium of NSW, giving plant lovers and the broader scientific community access to botanical treasurers that until now have been kept behind closed doors.
Horsham Museum and Art Gallery’s latest exhibition ‘Voyages to the Pacific’ is inspired by the 250th Anniversary of the departure of James Cook’s first voyage to Tahiti in 1768. The exhibition draws on the museum’s remarkable collection of ethnographic material. The show highlights the interactions and exchanges that have taken place between the peoples of Europe and the Pacific over the last 250 years, including Horsham’s residents whose objects are displayed.
250 years ago, James Cook left England on the first of three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean. A skillful navigator, he visited many places new to Europeans and his voyage accounts were widely read and celebrated. Today, his legacy is sometimes debated. In the Pacific, Islanders continue to remember the encounters that occurred, re-imagining them in artworks which reflect on their impact. This exhibition at the British Museum runs 29 November 2018 to 4 August 2019.
Climb aboard the magnificent Australian-built replica of James Cook’s Endeavour and tour one of the world’s most accurate maritime replica vessels. On board the beautifully crafted ship, you glimpse a sailor’s life during one of history’s great maritime adventures, Captain Cook’s epic 1768-71 world voyage. Look and you’ll see almost 30 kilometres of rigging and 750 wooden blocks or pulleys! The masts and spars carry 28 sails that spread approximately 10,000 sq feet (930 m2) of canvas.