AUSSIE

January 26  continues to provoke considerable discussion and debate in Australia about the significance of celebrating the British colonisation of the country and its impact on the indigenous population. In today’s press, politicians, journalists and even the newly named Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, have all given opinions about the significance of a national celebration on this particular day.

While there is substantial written and social media commentary about the diversity of the Australian population, one artist who has addressed the issue of inclusion and exclusion visually in Australia is Adelaide born, Peter Drew.

For the past five years, Drew has used the streets of Australian cities and towns as his ‘gallery’.  Recognising the egality of the street, and the importance of posters as a popular and visible tool for social commentary and activism, Drew has plastered thousands of posters around the country addressing issues of immigration, identity and colonisation.

Recently the National Gallery of Victoria acquired four posters from Drew’s ‘AUSSIE’ series from 2016. Each poster contains an image taken from photographs which are over one hundred year’s old, overlaid with the word AUSSIE.

The posters refer to a controversial law, the ‘Immigration Restriction Act’ of 1901 (also known as the ‘White Australia policy’) – a piece of legislation aimed at restricting non-white (particularly Asian) entry into the country. This act required people seeking permanent entry to take a dictation test of writing 50 words in any European language, as dictated by the immigration officer. Few migrants could pass this test and it was easy to fail an applicant if they were considered to be from an ‘undesirable’ country. Failure of the test could resort in deportation by the Australian Government. (This racist policy was eventually replaced by the ‘Migration Act’ in 1958).

Drew discovered some individuals who were exempt from the test or treated as exceptions. Mainly these were individuals already living in Australia or working in roles deemed essential for the Australian economy. One such person was Monga Khan, a hawker who travelled across rural Victoria, selling goods to far-flung townships. Khan was born in the Punjab and arrived in Australia in 1895. People like Khan were vital to the supply chain as they criss-crossed the country in the early 20^th century – providing not just essentials but also a communication link between townships.

 Drew came across Khan’s photograph in the Australian National Archives and was drawn to him: ‘because he looked strong and regal – you see his photograph and not only do you like him, but a part of you identifies with him as being heroic … he looks like someone you’d like to emulate … he has a strength to him’.

In reflecting on Monga Khan in ‘Five Ferments About Faithful Reproductions’ in the NGV Magazine, September 2020, Sydney-based Mumbai-born author Roanna Gonsalves notes: ‘We are beginning to hear the stories of the Indians in the early colonies. These people were servants, cameleers, traders, colonised subjects themselves, now brought here by their sahibs to perform the work of the coloniser’.

Khan became Drew’s first ‘poster boy’ and he has subsequently added others including Ah Sing 1911, Terum Singh 1917, and Gladys Sym Choon c. 1920. The photographs were taken, not as traditional portraits, but as identity images to claim exemption from the White Australia Policy. Accordingly, they attest to the resilience of the people in them. They were taken so that people, who had arrived in Australia before the implementation of the 1901 Immigration Act, could leave the country, visit family overseas and return to Australia which, despite its racism, was still experienced as home.

Other issues Drew has addressed include: ‘Stop the Boats’, Gun control, Climate change, and Indigenous land rights.

During the COVID pandemic, Drew created a hopeful poster called ‘Together Soon Enough’. As he was unable to paste them up himself, he sent them out (with instructions) and encouraged others to paste them up around the world.

Currently Drew is interested in: “the growing appetite for destruction we see in our polity at the moment … especially between the concepts of race and nation”.  He adds: “the role of art in that conflict is not really to say what is right or wrong but to depict the conflict and contemplate it … with the hope that mistakes from the past will not be repeated”. He is the perfect artist for 26 January.