‘Evidence brings to light objects that tell the story of resistance, social change, and the struggle for rights and liberties. Some of the objects and the concepts they embody are now part of our everyday social fabric, while others remain provocative, uncomfortable and even subversive.’ – Katie Dyer, Curator Contemporary, MAAS.

Evidence: Brook Andrew is an immersive installation and publication that draws on the rich and varied Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences collection to explore the theme of evidence. Brook Andrew is internationally recognised for his interdisciplinary practice that often interrogates knowledge systems, history, identity and race.

In Evidence, Andrew weaves together unexpected and perhaps overlooked objects and materials from the MAAS collection with specially commissioned artworks, suggesting different ways of interpreting objects and their history. Featured objects include Governor Macquarie’s chair, a ‘black box’ flight recorder, a Maralinga souvenir clock, a Brown Bess musket, a surgical table and colonial breastplates along with 19th-century ethnographic photographs. 

The installation opens at the Powerhouse Museum in October 2015. The publication will follow in early December and will include views of the installation as well as an interview with Andrew reflecting on his artistic philosophy and practice, an essay by legal academic Katherine Biber on the use of criminal evidence in art, and essays by MAAS curators that further explore the themes of evidence, stereotypes, interpretation and material culture through selected Museum objects.