KOTAHITANGA - Shared life lines
Together with other nine artists from WAIKATO, I have been commissioned by Creative Waikato to execute this art proposal to create awareness about the necessity of union of people of all cultures and creeds.
https://kotahitangagallery.nz/
I have chosen to explore through lines and colours of the fear and anxiety many immigrants are facing in New Zealand.
Drawing allows me to:
See, perceive and feel,
But I also want to listen, understand and share!
Four years ago, Aotearoa New Zealand received our family. I acknowledge that the land with its seas, mountains, bushes and amazing skies have wondered me and because of that I started drawing and painting again. I am grateful for meeting amazing people here that made me happy and allowed me to work and live. These people are from every part of the globe and many of course from many generations born and breed here. The habits, life stories and ideas that we share have widened my perspectives. But most of the days, I still feel as a foreign
I want to draw the shared Lines between us.
We are all made of shared lines and energies. Coming from Brazil, I am an immigrant that followed the necessity and desire to find a safer and free space for my children to grow up. I have followed the pathway of some of my ancestors that moved from Europe to Brazil and there found other people and Brazilians with whom they mixed. They also contributed as many other to build a new mixed society where I grow up, lived and worked for almost four decades.
I honour all those made this life change like me. It is not easy at all, especially in the middle of your life. Here in New Zealand in very happy that I found a job as architectural draftsperson where I have been designing affordable houses especially for Kainga Ora Housing and Communities. As many other people here I feel part of the machine that moves economy and contribute to the fostering of cities and life’s. Moreover, as an artist I can bring up and share my emotions by creating my watercolours.
However, at the moment I wrote this proposal, one month ago, I did not know if I would be able to stay in New Zealand as my residence visa took more than one year and half to be analysed. Just two weeks ago our resident visas came. Now we can really put our feet here!
Unfortunately with this lack of certainty I could not avoid feeling fear and anxiety. I acknowledge that we are leaving uncertain times and this is causing panic and stress to everyone. Not only to immigrants… many kiwis with business as well are suffering with labour shortage.
The question is just not only me, as our family there are thousands of people that chosen and committed to the country and now have this uncertainty due to an unclear, money and time consuming pathway to residence. New Zealand has now the longest residence queues in its history that have been growing since 2018, before Covid-19 pandemic. And the main expression of interest queue has been frozen for over a year and half.
Government has been changing priorities and they probably are needed but changes should be more transparent and proactive so people can have certainty of their decisions to stay or go. Many don’t have the option to go back and gave everything to live here. Others thousands of families have been split with part here and part overseas and many cannot even go away to say a last goodbye to parents that have passed away overseas. It’s hard to put roots and many already left or are planning to live due to uncertainty and for sure to find safer harbor to grow roots.
But what is my proposal?
When I started painting I was focused on landscapes and the last two years I have been focusing a lot of efforts on drawing people
As a distant observer I see, perceive and draw people that I often do not know. Drawing is a universal and guttural way of communication that I use.
I try to capture their emotions in these instants of the city life that soon are swallowed by routine. But I don’t listen to the stories that they carry from their own or from their ancestors. I observe their clothes, gestures and body features and through different linework I express my feelings about the scene capturing also the mood with bold washes of colour. Thus time I want to observe and draw but also listen to immigrants like me but also to kiwis to understand what they think, dream or even fear. Through the drawings more people will be able to see and feel these emotions. The idea is to put more light on the fear and anxiety that immigrants are facing with these long and uncertain pathways to residence nowadays.
Like during the great expeditions that surveyors and artists came amongst the sailors to depict the local people and new lands, I will draw our time and place for a few weeks in a sketchbook. Like in a journey I will illustrate than also scan and write about it on my Instagram artist account, sharing also short videos of people speaking together with the art.
Throughout drawings with ink and coloured watercolour washes on a cotton paper professional sketchbook I will create a collection of samples of the society in Waikato , New Zealand 2021. These drawings will be representative of the mixed community we live.
Everyone has a story. We are walking books that I want to understand and illustrate. We often judge people by how they look so visually we could either accentuate our differences or show our similarities.
My references for this proposal are my own sketchbooks with figurative drawings and the Human Library project that started in Denmark and even had an experience in 2014 at The Hamilton Central library.
Moreover, another reference is the sculptural installation from Israeli sculptor Zadok Ben-David “People I saw but never met” that includes more than six-thousand figures of men, women and children. The artist says that there was something in their presence, gesture or even facial expression that show our humanity but also our uniqueness.
It is important to look at our shadows and understand emotions both individually and collectively.
My goal is to create drawing of our people’s to represent the mixed community of New Zealand and that might allow to understand the importance of immigrants as working and playful part of a changing society. In a moment that we are mainly staggered here we need to know each other’s more and that will possibly widen our views.
I hope to show that all lives have value. That our energies and the energies that we carry through the stories and habits of our ancestors are essential to woven together a more fair society for our next generation’s. These lines might also mend wounds with love and compassion. At least my own…