Another World Inside this One is loosely based on the antipodean saying, 'It's like Captain Cook's axe' – a reference to an object that has been altered so many times that little remains of its original material. Though there is scant proof that Captain James Cook ever had, or wrote about, his own axe, this saying flows from a common belief that he did, and that the head of the tool was replaced twice and the handle six times, leaving nothing of the original object. Zac Langdon-Pole takes this concept a step further, in that he carves and paints the American hickory handle of a store-bought axe to resemble the tree sapling from which the wood would have been cut for its manufacture.