ngadhi / me

Brook Andrew (b.1970, Sydney, Australia) is an artist whose conceptual practice shifts across photography, performance, moving image, installation, public space and museum intervention, often through deep collaboration with artists, communities and friends. Working between places, histories and systems of representation, he brings together images, objects and ideas to question how stories are constructed, circulated and lived.

His practice is informed by his experiences as a Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal, kweer (queer) person from south eastern Australia, as well as an ongoing curiosity about the intersecting relationships between people, memory, culture and place. Across his work is a sustained engagement with visibility and invisibility, cultural inheritance, reciprocity and the often messy realities of human relationships with each other and the nonhuman world.

Many of his artworks are inspired by traditions of mark-making and carving from Wiradjuri, his grandmother’s Country in Western New South Wales. The use of Wiradjuri language is also central to his practice and evident in early works such as Ngajuu Ngaay Nginduugirr (I see you) (1998), an installation combining photographic print and neon text.

Inspired by the power of objects in archives, Brook’s museum interventions began in 1996 with Dispersed Treasures at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. He has since worked with many significant collections internationally to develop groundbreaking museum interventions, including at the Musée d’Art et de Culture Soufis MTO, Chatou (2025); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2023), musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris (2020), Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (2017), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2017), Powerhouse Museum, Sydney (2016), and Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2015). Brook has also created several site-specific works for major international exhibitions, including: Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023); Liverpool Biennial (2023); the Gropius Bau, Berlin (2022); Wuzhen International Contemporary Art Exhibition (2019); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala (2018); and the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018).

As a curator, Brook was the artistic director of the First Nations and artist-led NIRIN: the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020). Following this role, he was an international advisor for the Sámi Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), and a co-curator of YOYI Care, Repair, Heal at the Gropius Bau (2022). In his current role as Director of Reimagining Museums and Collections at the University of Melbourne (2022 - ongoing), Brook founded BLAK C.O.R.E, a collective driven by First Nations methodologies, research, and cultural practices.

Brook led the forum Indigenous Visions, during the 2024 Venice Biennale (a collaboration between Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and Museums and Collections, University of Melbourne), and has presented numerous public lectures, panels and talks. Recent highlights include: the March Meeting, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2022); Reclaim the Earth at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022); Oceanic Imaginaries at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2022); Decolonizing Provenance Research conference at Musée d’ethnographie de Genève, Geneva (2021); and Asia Society's Arts and Museum Summit, online (2021). He was also a story consultant and researcher in 2025 for the Australian ABCTV second series “The Art Of...”.

In addition to his artistic and curatorial practices, Brook established the publishing arm Garru Editions in 2020. Publications include: marramarra: Indigenous artists making history visible (2024) with co-author Jessica Neath; galang 01 and galang 02 (2022), volumes by the Powerhouse-galang, an Indigenous-led think tank, collective and sovereign space initiated by Brook in his role as Artistic Associate at the Powerhouse Museum Sydney; and Dual/Duel (2021), a collaborative artist book by Brook and Trent Walter.

Brook is represented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels; Ames Yavuz Gallery Sydney and Singapore, and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.