On 31 August, thousands joined Adelaide’s Rundle Park for a nationwide protest against immigration, their chants focused on housing, cost of living, and what it means to be Australian. Cutting through the noise was artist Peter Drew, carrying a poster of Monga Khan, an Indian hawker who lived here more than a century ago. Across Khan’s portrait, one word stood bold and defiant: “AUSSIE.”
“I knew it would only take one or two angry people to tear it down,” Drew tells The Indian Sun in an interview the following day. “But all the people I spoke to weren’t angry in that way. I came away feeling that the differences between ‘us and them’ are actually very small.”
For Drew, Khan’s image is more than a poster—it’s a statement. In 2016, he began plastering Khan’s photograph across Australian cities, paired with a single word beneath: “Aussie.” His goal was to turn Khan into a folk hero, a reminder of the rich and diverse histories often forgotten in public narratives of Australian identity.
Over the past decade, Drew’s work has continued to evolve. His Aussie project has grown beyond street posters, extending into gallery exhibits and books—all with the same aim: challenging assumptions of who counts as “Australian.” Yet the street remains central.
“The street is a public forum. Who feels they belong there is crucial for democracy,” he explains. “Online communication is fast and impersonal. It feeds fear. But when people see each other face-to-face, say, when they encounter a poster like Monga Khan’s, it sparks real conversation.”
Still, he recognises the danger when visual culture such as posters, memes, viral images, et al, is weaponised. “Online communication is very fast, very impersonal, and it favours algorithmic bubbles. It can be destructive because it leans into our more fearful and negative impulses,” he argues. That’s why pasting posters, for him, is a way of saying that everyone belongs here.
This struggle between fear and belonging was palpable at the march on August 31. Though ostensibly focused on housing and economic issues, the event was tinged with anti-immigration rhetoric. He observed older attendees expressing nostalgia and fear, while younger people, including immigrants, looked forward, eager to shape an Australia reflective of its diversity.
“I think the vast majority don’t really have a problem with immigration. It’s more about housing and infrastructure—economic issues, really. And those issues affect immigrant communities too.”
He sees a cyclical pattern. While current geopolitics, particularly the conflict in Gaza, have sharpened the debate, the underlying dynamic remains. “There is just the eternal fear of the other that never changes… it’s just part of living in a diverse, multi-ethnic democracy.”
Next year marks ten years since Drew began his Aussie poster campaign, and he plans to commemorate it by hitting the road once more to paste a thousand new posters. The Indian connection will be prominently featured again—not just with Monga Khan, but with new faces from the historical archives.
“I have three new designs. One is of an Indian man, one of a Chinese woman, and one of a Syrian woman. They’re all from the Victorian archives,” he reveals.
The power of Drew’s projects lies in its ability to surprise and start a conversation. “People are usually surprised because they can tell the photograph is very old. They have this concept that Indian migration is something that has just started happening now,” he says. “By talking a little bit about history, you can see people… change their attitude and the story they have in their mind about what Australia is.”
For Drew, art is about empathy, not propaganda. He talks to people who might not agree with his work, listens to their concerns, and hopes to shift perspectives, not through confrontation, but through exposure to stories long ignored. On 31 August, in the midst of a tense march, it was exactly that ethos in action: a quiet Indian face on a poster reminding thousands that Australia has always been made richer by migration.
Ten years on, Drew’s mission remains unchanged: to expand the definition of who counts as “Aussie,” and to remind everyone that belonging is bigger than fear—and older than many realise.
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