DoctorJohn Vea

Comic Release is a three-part podcast series hosted by artist Joe Jowitt which explores the use of humour in artists' moving image. In this conversation, Joe meets Ōtautahi-based artist John Vea, whose work uses humour as a device to draw viewers into deeper dialogues around Pasifika identity. They discuss John's recent exhibition Ini Mini Mani Mou (2025), the resonance of presenting the work at Christchurch Art Gallery and classic works from John's back catalogue including  Tribute to American Samoa and Tonga (2009).

A new art exhibition in Christchurch is using humour to show the hoops Pacific people must jump through in order to get hold of a New Zealand passport. Ini Mini Mani Mou by Christchurch-based Tongan artist John Vea opened on Saturday at the Christchurch Art Gallery.

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Making visible the relationship between hard labour and the Pacific: John Vea and Jasmine Togo-Brisby. Exhibition Outcast at Tamaki Makaurau’s Gus Fisher Gallery brings Vea together with fourth-generation Australian South Sea Islander artist Jasmine Togo-Brisby.

Creative New Zealand Peer Assessors – Arts Grants Pacific Arts Fund Peer assessment is critical to Creative New Zealand’s decision making process for funding. It provides input from individuals who have specialist knowledge of specific art forms and/or cultural contexts including international trends and markets, or specialist knowledge of an area of arts development/capability building.

Exhibiting for the first time in Australia, artist John Vea presents ‘If I pick your fruit, will you put mine back?’. The exhibition takes a look at the complex labour flow throughout our region. John Vea’s work opens up conversations about the oppression, inequality and invisibility experienced by pacific migrant workers in both New Zealand and Australia. Nicole spoke with John about the way employment schemes, and the politics of labour are explored in his exhibition ‘If I pick your fruit, will you put mine back?’.

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John Vea talks about hypnotising the audience with the mahi.