96 degrees in the shade is a new durational performance by John Vea that explores ideas of impermanence and itinerancy through the entanglement of labour and access to shelter. In the work, which is presented as a video installation, the artist disassembles and reassembles a mobile shoe-shine kiosk under the partial shade of a post as it moves throughout the course of a working day. The performance was inspired by a phone call taken outdoors in the summertime while Vea sat under the shade of palm trees. Vea recounts: “We talk into the late afternoon, the shadows of the trees grow long, we chase the shade to keep cover. We continue this choreography until the conversation ends.”
On a visit to Busan, the artist noticed the small footpath kiosks run by shoe-shiners, whose mobile units provide scarce shelter from the fearsome sun. 96 degrees in the shade acknowledges the often extreme conditions that labourers work in, and raises questions about the politics of shelter: who has access to shade, and what might this shade obscure? In his performance of labour, Vea reveals how these tensions resonate within the increased precarity that global migrant workforces face: through the erosion of workers rights and the effects of climate change.
Artwork details
John Vea, 96 degrees in the shade, 2024
Performance video and sound, 7 hr 53 min 49 sec
Co-commissioned by Te Tuhi and the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee
About the artist
John Vea is an Ōtautahi Christchurch based artist who works with sculpture, video and performance art. Vea examines narratives of labour, migration and gentrification that exist within Te Moana Nui a Kiwa. By enacting stories that have been collected through everyday interactions with people, he offers a humorous and powerful counterpoint to the Western meta narrative. Vea’s work has been recently exhibited at Gus Fisher Gallery (2023); 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (2019); Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2018); Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2018); and the Honolulu Biennale (2017). Vea completed his Ph.D. at Auckland University of Technology in 2021 and is currently a Lecturer at The University of Canterbury.