John Vea’s final PhD exhibition titled:
This exhibition reflects on his practice-led PhD thesis that encompasses a socially engaged installation and performance art practice that includes individual and co-operative performances. Performance art collectives—currently forming an important part of a Pacific art subculture in Aotearoa New Zealand—form part of a significant co-operative process.
Through anecdotes of his own and his family’s lived experiences, from an inside or emic perspective, he set the tone and direction of the research and its approach to issues such as Pacific labour and ownership of fonua (land). The project explores the complexities of life and labour in the Pacific diaspora: how Pacific peoples adapt to relocation, issues of labour and laws around working, and how these play a part in our traditions, our living and family dynamics. The exhibition revolves around key installation and performance art projects that include: caution cleaner (2014); she sows this ‘āina with her younger siblings, yet she cannot inherit that same ‘āina (2017); Concrete is as Concrete Doesn’t (2017); and Section 69ZD Employment Relations Act 2000 (2019).
Congratulations to Digital Design Major graduate Varvara Solovyeva whose animated film ‘USO’ has been selected in competition for the International Programme at the Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF 2023).
‘USO’ was Varvara’s graduating film for her Bachelor of Design in 2022. Varvara is currently undertaking her Master of Design studies at the School of Art and Design.
The ninthWavesound project, produced for Laura Marsh’s doctoral thesis, fuses feminist activism and a DJ practice to generate an installation and participatory art practice aimed at corporeal, low-frequency, sound-oriented experiences.