Brook Andrew, Resident and Visitor

La Boîte arts graphiques presents “Resident and Visitor,” a photographic series by Australian artist Brook Andrew. Created as part of the museum's Photography Prize, this work questions how visual archives shape narratives and perceptions of identity.

An Australian artist of Wiradjuri and Celtic descent, Brook Andrew has been developing a practice combining historical research and artistic creation for several years. Selected in 2015 as part of the Photography Prize of the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Resident and Visitor offers a powerful reflection on the uses of photographic images in colonial narratives.

After immersing himself in the museum's photographic collection, Brook Andrew compiled two sets of images: those of “residents,” people living in different countries during the colonial era, and those of “visitors,” travelers, soldiers, and anthropologists, mostly European. These old photographs, often taken in contexts of domination, are reactivated through a contemporary artistic gesture: the artist invited friends and relatives to pose for a portrait, choosing an image with which they felt a personal connection.

 

This collaborative process gives a voice back to the people depicted, who are often anonymous and frozen in a silent history. It also questions access to archives, their use, and their reappropriation by individuals with diasporic backgrounds, whose histories span multiple territories and heritages. Brook Andrew thus acts as a mediator: a bridge between past and present, between silent images and those who can now give them new meaning.