What does an Aussie look like? Peter Drew has been asking that question on streets across Australia for a decade. Now, his popular AUSSIE poster series is coming together in a free outdoor exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum.
Opening on 28th August at the museum’s Wharf 7 forecourt, the exhibition brings one of Australia’s most recognisable public art projects to Darling Harbour, where its portraits will prompt visitors to consider identity, belonging and the migration stories that have shaped the country.
A question pasted across Australia
Since 2016, Drew has pasted thousands of his distinctive AUSSIE posters across Australian cities and towns. The series draws on photographs of people who lived through the era of the White Australia policy, when successive Commonwealth governments discriminated against non-white migration.
Drew began the series in response to what he saw as a rising tide of anti-immigration sentiment. His work explores memory, nationalism, identity, masculinity and mythology, using archival portraits to challenge assumptions about who belongs.
The museum brings the posters together in one place, turning a familiar piece of street art into a public exhibition. The portraits draw on a particularly stark chapter in Australian immigration history.
Who gets to be Australian?
The White Australia policy, introduced in 1901, restricted non-British migration and empowered immigration officials to administer a dictation test in any prescribed language. Many of the people represented in Drew’s work were seeking exemptions from the test. The policy was gradually dismantled after the Second World War and abolished in 1973.
While the policy is long gone, Drew’s posters reveal how government policy can shape something as fundamental as who gets to be seen—and to see themselves—as Australian.
That question remains relevant today. More than three in 10 Australians were born overseas, with England, India, China, New Zealand, the Philippines and Vietnam among the most common countries of birth.
Poster art in the open air
The Australian National Maritime Museum says the exhibition offers an opportunity to explore those questions through the lens of migration and belonging.
“Australia’s multicultural makeup shapes who we are and how we live,” Australian National Maritime Museum Director and CEO Daryl Karp AM said.
“As the national maritime museum, we tell stories of movement, migration and connection. These stories show how people have arrived, settled, contributed to and shaped Australia.”
Karp said Drew’s posters make a powerful statement about inclusion. “Peter Drew’s AUSSIE posters are powerful because they make a simple but profound statement about who we recognise as part of the Australian story,” she said.
Placed outside the museum, the posters invite passers-by into the conversation without requiring a gallery visit or admission ticket.
Key details
- What: Peter Drew’s AUSSIES poster exhibition
- When: Opens 28th August, 2026
- Where: Australian National Maritime Museum, Wharf 7 forecourt, near the Pyrmont ferry stop
- Entry: Free
