New work

Book/Exhibition

Stopover, a story of Indian-Fijian migration

Stopover is a story of migration. Indians were shipped to Fiji, beginning 1879, under an unfortunate indenture system to graft in the colony’s sugar cane fields. While some died in service and others returned to India at the end of their indenture, many remained and settled. The descendents of those labourers, third- fourth- and fifth-generation now, still denied land ownership in Fiji, continue to emigrate from this fickle Pacific country in considerable numbers, as a succession of coups - the first in 1987 and the fourth in December 2006 - and ensuing racism and economic hardship reinforce their view that their future lies in first world cities such as Vancouver, Sydney, Seattle, Calgary, San Franscisco, Auckland and elsewhere.

Stopover ... “Connew’s work combines haunting images with a text that is poetic, elegant, and moving in its clarity. There is a power and persuasion to his work that even the most scholarly and responsible analyses cannot match.” Professor David Hanlon, Director, Centre forPacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i, July 13, 2007.

A spread of Stopover photographs appeared in TIME magazine, 24 September 2007, with a well-turned and pointed story by Elizabeth Keenan. The exhibition opened at PATAKA, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand on August 26, 2007. Victoria University Press, Wellington and University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu published the book in July 2007. The book was launched with grace and sustenance amongst the cane cutters and their families, and in the shade of a giant mango tree, by Bruce Connew, Catherine Griffiths, Brij Lal, Padma Lal, Jogindhar Singh Kanwal and Amarjit Kaur in Vatiyaka, Fiji, 2pm, Saturday, August 25, 2007.

Exhibition/Book/Short Film

I Saw You

I looked out the window down to the pocket-sized figures about the public car park, half a kilometre away as the crow flies, and said to myself, “Peter Bialobrzeski, damn it, you’re right, there’s work to be done here. No shilly-shallying. I’ll watch these people, and I’ll photograph them. They won’t know. How good is that, Peter Bialobrzeski, how simple is that? ” For twelve months, from the top floor of home, veiled behind an apron of black velvet, through double-glazing and a long lens, I photographed the comings and goings of a car park, an ample piece of reclaimed Wellington land that juts out into a bay, a family beach to one side. Surveillance is routine nowadays. It’s everywhere. We’ve come to expect it; we’ve even come to embrace it. It promises social order. It makes us feel safer. Its premise is creepy. I peered in on people’s lives, sneaked up on their susceptibilities as they busied themselves mostly in ordinary ways, minding their own business and perhaps a little of yours, when they could reasonably expect no one to be watching — private moments in a public space. Then I took away some of their identity and shuffled them together.

I Saw You, the new 52-image surveillance series, showed at boutique Mary Newton Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, until August 11, 2007. The exhibition was accompanied by an artist’s book and short film. The film, which, along with the book, is available for purchase, can be seen on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwuBPM_uUlo

Book/exhibition

New Zealand, raw material for an idea, 2006 - 2007

The photographs in this new but continuing series, taken throughout New Zealand, are the raw material for an idea. While they are raw material, this shouldn’t be taken to mean that I care less about each image than whatever will be the finished product. I care about each image very much. It’s just that with earlier books, such as On the way to an ambush and Muttonbirds - part of a story, the final artifact has been more crucial than its parts. That’s the way it seems to work for me. I’ll add to the series every week or so, unless I’m out of town.