INTERVIEW: The 'Aussie' poster guy on his decade-long street art project

Australian street artist Peter Drew has spent a decade quietly transforming the nation's urban landscape with his 'Aussie' posters—hand-screened, archival images of racially and ethnically diverse Australians from over a century ago, each bearing the single word 'Aussie' beneath. What began as a defiant act of historical reclamation in 2016, sparked by the White Australia policy and rising anti-Islamic sentiment, has evolved into a powerful, ongoing conversation about national identity. Drew’s work deliberately challenges the myth of a monolithic 'Aussie' heritage, using forgotten faces—like Monga Khan, a 19th-century cameleer—to provoke curiosity, connection, and empathy. Despite vandalism, online hostility, and physical confrontations, Drew sees the project not as a political protest but as an act of love for a country that’s always been more complex and inclusive than its mythos suggests. He embraces the chaos, the confrontations, and even the nihilistic defacement of his work as part of a larger narrative: that true patriotism isn’t about purity, but about commitment to a shared, imperfect, and evolving nation. What makes Drew’s project so compelling is its quiet subversion. He doesn’t lecture; he appears. He doesn’t demand agreement; he invites questions. His posters are not about correcting history, but about imagining belonging.