Brook Andrew
Brook Andrew is an Australian Wiradjuri artist, curator and writer. His interdisciplinary practice is driven by the collisions of intertwined narratives, often emerging from the mess of the “Colonial Wuba (hole)”. His practice is grounded in his perspective as a Wiradjuri and Celtic person with matrilineal kinship from the kalar midday (land of the three rivers), Australia. Brook's artworks, research, leadership roles and curatorial projects challenge the limitations imposed by power structures, historical amnesia and complicity to centre and support Indigenous ways of knowing and being through systemic change and yindyamarra (respect, honour, go slow and responsibility).
Brook presents his artwork in Australia and internationally, with research-based museum interventions and Wiradjuri language being central to his practice. Brook’s museum interventions began in 1996 with Dispersed Treasures at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. The use of Wiradjuri language began shortly after, evident in early works such as Ngajuu Ngaay Nginduugirr (I see you) (1998), an installation combining photographic print and neon text.
Brook’s recent works include the theatre script GABAN, premiering in 2022 as a video work and live performances at YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal, the Gropius Bau, Berlin; and solo exhibition ngaay ngajuu dhugul birra (to see my skin broken) (2022) at Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris, which featured ceramics and paintings that present the complicated and broken processes of accessing and piecing together Aboriginal cultural material held in museums. Other recent exhibitions were held at Murray Art Museum Albury, Albury (2021); musée du quai Branly, Paris (2020); Wuzhen International Art Exhibition, Wuzhen (2019); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi (2018); Musée d'ethnographie de Genève, Geneva (2017-2018) and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2017). In 2017, Brook’s artistic career was recognised with a large-scale, immersive solo exhibition – Brook Andrew: The Right to Offend is Sacred at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
