The Mixing Room

A current exhibition at Te Papa is called The Mixing Room. The word exhibition is a total misnomer for this project: it is as far away from a traditional museum exhibition as you are likely to get. The Mixing Room uses new technologies to tell the stories of young refugees coming to Aotearoa in the last few years.

     Clearly the people who are the subject of the project have been intimately and intensively involved in its creation. They are, after all, the material around which the project is based. In psychiatric treatment circles, there is a term: "the therapeutic use of self". This term seems apt for the process by which the new New Zealanders were involved in the project. They used their own stories and often harrowing lives, to contribute to a project to show New Zealand who they are, and in the process defined their own identities more and claimed their rights to a peaceful, free existence here. Big Ups to the kids involved.

     It is widely acknowledged that this country punches way above its weight in terms of humanitarian contribution and acceptance of refugees. The deplorable Tampa incident of 2001 is an example. Our big brother Australia, under the regime of the detestable John Howard, could not accept a boatload of Afghani refugees and would have rather seen them drown at sea than offer them safe haven. The New Zealand Government, under the sterling leadership of the much-missed Helen Clarke, simply said: "Oh, well. We'll take them then." Simple as that.

     New Zealand accepts far more than its share, proportionally, of refugees from repressive regimes and war-torn international hot-spots. It is good to see how well we assimilate these folk and what happens to them once they get here.

     The Mixing Room is clearly aimed at younger people, with its bright, splashy visual aesthetic and its interactivity. You sit around a perspex cafe-style table and press on the image of a young refugee. A digital video is then looped through, with quality sound, telling that person's story. They have been encouraged to use poetry, rap, acting, straight narrative, sports: whatever mediums they chose, to tell the often-tragic tale of how they were successfully selected for immigration, what dangers they escaped, what the journey here was like, what their reception was like and how they and their families settled in.

     Large illuminated high-quality digital photographs line the walls and the front consists of a large screen rendition of a photo mosaic, made up of the faces of thousands of refugees. it is the type of installation that is user-friendly and non-intimidating. You can start in the middle and finish up at either end, moving about freely.
A great project, well-conceived, well-executed and well-displayed.