Foreigners Everywhere at Auckland Art Gallery
Claire Fontaine. Foreigners Everywhere. Auckland Art Gallery. 10th May – 11 August. Auckland 5th Triennial Tama’ese lenei. Étrangers partout. Kei nga wāhi katoa a tauiwi. I first thought my eyesight was failing me, until I realised each of the six vibrant neon signs were actually in an array of different languages. Searching for something I could understand, a pang of guilt struck when I looked to the Māori phrase; unable to decipher a meaning, I turned to the French instead. Foreigners everywhere. It’s a pretty strong statement, yet it didn’t have the effect on me that I thought it would: that excited feeling of revelation when confronted with a novel and plainly perceptive idea. Even the initial inability to understand what was being said was not as frustrating as expected. The feeling of foreignness settled gently rather than dramatically arriving. Was this because of my own travelling experiences, having gone days without being able to understand a single piece of my surroundings? Or was it something more universal? It’s no secret Auckland is a multicultural …