Being Present
We should not be defined by the smallness of our islands, but by the greatness of our oceans.
Epeli Hau’ofa
Migration has been an issue on which politicians and political parties have staked their identity since 1901, when the idea of the White Australia policy came into being. Subsequently dismantled only to have asylum seekers become another part of political identity, Australian immigration policy is driven mainly by agendas of economic growth and boosting human capital, and only secondly concerned with humanitarianism, development or expanding cultural diversity.1 John Vea’s first Australian exhibition, If I pick your fruit, will you put mine back?, provokes awareness of migrant workers, often through the lens of labour conditions. Curators Micheal Do and Mikala Tai at Sydney’s 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art have brought together many of Vea’s key works and supported research for a new commission, a work in public space in which Vea extended his concerns with the constrained conditions of diaspora life as determined by law and commerce.
At 4A the exhibition layout led (2019) is set up as a lunchroom, and only accessible at hours designated as ‘rest breaks’. The title references the New Zealand Act of Parliament that requires rest breaks for employees, the minimum legislated time aligning with the opportunity to access the room. Commissioned by 4A, the work develops from the artist’s 2018 installation at Te Tuhi in Pakuranga, , which was informed by Vea’s own exposure to factory work. The yellow room, an odd colour that suggests left-over paint, is complete with stereotypical furnishings: a tin of International Roast coffee and cans of Palm corn beef, Talofa Pe’epe’e Coconut Cream and Tai-Yo fish. A copy of the rests on a table and free call numbers for Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands are handwritten on a note by the phone. Occasionally a segment of ABC news emits from a portable radio on a table, relating the offensive statement made by Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack in August 2019, suggesting that Pacific nations need not be concerned about climate change as they can come to Australia to pick fruit, which coincided with the Morrison government’s refusal to address climate change at the Pacific Islands Forum. A pinboard contains photocopies of articles about seasonal working, climate change and the larger field of labour politics. The walls are decorated with posters of island beaches printed with principles that counter the crude statements of the Australian politicians, reproducing quotes from eminent Pacific thinkers Epeli Hau’ofa, Teresia Teaiwa and Albert Wendt on the value of connections to cultural spirit and place.
