A contemporary artist says he’s not bothered by “nihilistic kids” after his street art poster series were imitated to depict suspected Bondi Beach terrorist Naveed Akram.
His response comes after 50 posters went up around Melbourne—featuring his signature design.
The posters include an image of Akram, who is accused of murdering 15 people and injuring around 40 others, with the word “Aussie” along the bottom.
Peter Drew is the creator of poster series that features various Australians of different backgrounds alongside the word “Aussie.”
He says that he was not upset by incident and had field numerous media inquiries.
“What none of those interviews will show you is they always ask, ‘Hey Peter, you must be so upset about these copycat posters?’ and I go, ‘No.’ And they can’t show that because it’s their job to turn up the volume on the conflict and the reason I’m not upset is that I know that the people making them are just kids,” Drew said.
“They are internet trolls, nihilistic kids, who want to upset people and have got no understanding of how upsetting those posters can be.”
Drew said at one stage, his poster campaign included posters of U.S. President Donald Trump and the word “Aussie.”
“They are not to be taken seriously,” he said in a video posted online, where he said he’d been in contact with some of the imitators.
“One of them is an [expletive], the other one really regrets what he’s already done and is … close to flipping on his mates.”
Drew said his poster series had been replicated by both “right wing dorks” and “left wing dorks” over the years.
“They’re actually more like each other than the people they’re trying to convince.”
Mayor Labels Posters ‘Sick’
Melbourne Mayor Nick Reece was outraged by the posters, which appeared over the weekend across Melbourne and Yarra council areas.
Reece told Melbourne radio station 3AW the posters were also accompanied by smaller stickers bearing “far right” sentiments.
“The ‘Aussie’ poster series is a well-known one in Australian contemporary art but what has happened here is someone has hijacked that series and they’ve redone it featuring the Bondi shooter and it’s just sick,” he said.
“Families are still grieving, the community is still grieving.
“There is no possible universe in which this could be seen as an artistic response to the original series and so we got out there quick-smart to get the posters down and at the city of Melbourne.”
Reece said his city had a policy whereby hateful and racist material must be removed within an hour.
“We worked all weekend, we reckon there were about 50 [posters] we pulled down across the city,” he said.
The council is currently reviewing CCTV.
A Victoria Police spokesperson referred The Epoch Times to the council.
