2018

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The New Zealand people self-proclaim this land to be a rainbow nation, where immigration and new cultures are welcomed with open arms. However, this facade of warmth and comfort does not sustain itself. 

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The project “The Immigration Game” aims to contribute a discussion surrounding the immigrant experience.  And how the use of microgressions or macro-aggressions form an unacknowledged racist subculture, developed from social ignorance. Within the role of an immigrant, we are to integrate ourselves into society and understand the rules of it. But with that, a non-radical use of ethnic cleansing comes into play, whether that be reinforced by external pressures or one's own; there are still social pressures that indirectly encourages changing our behavioural properties.

 

In this series of stills, each subject was to play a game of card, instructed by two individuals of different ethnic backgrounds. These individuals were to speak no English to the subjects (as that was the subjects first or only language). They had to explain the card game, and play a successful game only speaking their languages of origin.  Everyone besides the subjects had to make decisions of when to start and end the series of games.  

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The immigration game on a small scale positions the subjects into a moment of the emotional journey of an immigrant. The confusion, frustration, isolation, and much more, is the constant state of an immigrant, but also brings to the surface how they cannot be comforted by the thought of going back to a place they once called home. For many, the reality is that Aotearoa has to now become their new home.

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The work aims to raise awareness surrounding these issues. It is not to instruct locals to change their ways, but for everyone including the immigrants that have settled to maintain a conscious mindset to be aware of the sensitivities and beliefs that immigrants have. 

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Immigrants are very capable of moulding themselves into a new culture. Therefore they do not have the ideologies, history, and awareness of societal rules, of one culture, but of multiple.