John Vea: Ini Mini Mani Mou
A must-see exhibition, Ini Mini Mani Mou opens on Saturday 8 March at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetū.
It’s been developed by mould-breaking contemporary artist John Vea (Tonga, Aotearoa New Zealand), a lecturer in sculpture at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts.
Working across sculpture, installation, video and performance, Vea uses a playful sensibility to bring visibility to some of the issues affecting Pacific migrants to Aotearoa, says curator Chloe Cull.
“These new works, commissioned by the Gallery, invite the audience into an immersive, gamified experience that mimics the layers of bureaucracy many Pacific peoples encounter when navigating Aotearoa New Zealand’s immigration processes.”
Vea contrasts the idealised ‘dream’ of migrating to Aotearoa with the rigmarole of paperwork required to achieve it.
“As the audience enters the exhibition space, they’ll interact with an arcade-style installation that alludes to these challenges. The Aotearoa New Zealand passport is represented as the ultimate prize, yet always remains just out of reach,” Cull says.
“Vea makes art that Pacific audiences can relate to, but his work also offers opportunities for others to gain insight into the struggle many people go through to live and work in Aotearoa.
“While he frames the issue in an engaging way, the questions he poses are confronting. Does the dream stack up with reality? Vea’s use of participatory elements throughout Ini Mini Mani Mou enables the audience to connect with the sense of frustration.”
A moving-image work highlights the arbitrary nature of the assessment criteria used by Immigration New Zealand in the selection of migrant applicants.
“Vea’s art exposes the unfairness of the system and demands more transparency. But we want to do more than just highlight the problem, so one of the public programmes we will be offering during this exhibition is a workshop on visa and residency application processes. People can come and get help if this is something they’re working through personally,” Cull says.
“We’re excited to open this exhibition and see people respond to the work. It’s thought-provoking and should spark some interesting, and important, discussions.”
John Vea: Ini Mini Mani Mou opens on Saturday 8 March and closes on 13 July 2025.