Peter Drew’s striking Aussie poster series, now a familiar sight on Aussie streets and alleyways, have breathed new life into Australia’s hidden histories. Featuring archival photographs of immigrants at the time of the White Australia policy, coupled with the word, ‘Aussie,’ the poster aims to pose more questions than answers. Amidst the recent anti-immigration protests and racial tensions, these questions are more relevant than ever.
With the ten-year anniversary of the series fast approaching, Drew has been working steadily in his studio to print 1500 posters by early next year. Peter Drew
His latest series of posters, featuring several new designs, look to broaden the scope of his project. In one of his most recent designs, three men ripping a poster featuring Monga Khan during the “March for Australia,” have become its unwitting stars. This time, the word “Aussie,” is punctuated with a question mark.
“All the Aussie posters have an implied question mark. But I wanted to make the question explicit. It’s up to the audience to then decide whether this behaviour is in fact Aussie,” Drew says.
View this post on Instagram
This poster is just one of the many ways in which he is seeking to dive into and further explain the paradox at the centre of the word “Aussie,” a word that is now more hotly contested than ever. This will include for the first time, a picture of a Jewish person, the great grandfather of a politician and a veteran of the Australian armed forces.
“There are two ways of interpreting the Aussie posters. One [interpretation] uses the word “Aussie” in an aspirational way, highlighting that these individuals are Aussie too. But the poster also seeks to show that the word “Aussie” has a complicated history of its own,” he says.
Peter Drew has had a long history of taking his art to the streets, which he views as the ultimate forum for political discussion. His Real Aussies Say Welcome series, a project in response to Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers, became widely popular, inspiring many to make their own versions of the poster. His Aussie series, centred around the now widely beloved Monga Khan, was initially created to question and probe the rise of anti-Islam hate sentiment following the Lindt Cafe siege in 2016. Other immigrants who have now become familiar faces include Dorothy Sym Choon and Nellie Chin.
“I operate out of a sense of curiosity. I wonder what the effect will be. I don’t want to impose any ideas or intend to have a certain effect on the audience. When I make posters, I have a desire to find out the response myself,” he says.
His strict rejection of being an “art activist,” and of “presenting political certainties,” has meant that his relationship with his audience is continually changing. He’s had encounters with people on both sides of the political spectrum, including Nationals member Gurmesh Singh who took to Parliament to say “It’s great to see that history recognised across the streets of not only Sydney, but Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. But it was incredibly distressing to see videos of these same posters getting ripped down at the protests…”
When asked why his posters have had such a deep impact on people regardless of their political ideologies, Drew notes “I think the posters are gentle enough that they have the power to appeal to people on the other side. It unsettles their assumptions enough to temper their perspective.”
Perhaps this is why few of his face-to-face interactions have been confronting. Whilst he’s no stranger to receiving vitriol online, he rarely experiences this in the real world. Even when he does, it’s no longer something which he fears. Peter Drew
“It’s an oddly intimate thing when you see someone clearly upset. It becomes very hard not to empathise with the person, and you can then de-escalate the situation quite quickly. That’s something that’s very hard to do online,” he explains.
Early next year, he’ll be hitting the streets solo once again in his hi-vis jacket and with a can of glue to put out 1000 posters across Australia. To see Drew post up the posters is a spectacle in itself and a reminder of what just one man can achieve.
“The main reason why I prefer to do it alone is, if I had a little team of people, it creates an in-group and an out-group. But if I’m alone, then no one feels excluded and everyone can identify with what I’m doing,” he says.
Regardless of the response next year, it’s guaranteed that Peter Drew’s work will introduce more faces and names into our collective memory. These heroes will prompt us to ask ourselves what it really means to belong, to live in a multicultural society, and importantly, what we mean, when we proclaim to be Aussie.
READ HERE: Archana Hande’s art rewinds to move forward
