“Concerned Citizens”, a nationwide group of more than 60 artists, plan to exclude residents of Invercargill from arts events and public places in five cities around New Zealand on Friday (August 19th), because they do not recognise it as a legitimate city.

The group has made it clear that Invercargill residents will be banned from concurrent photography exhibitions in Auckland, Hamilton, Whanganui, Wellington and Dunedin.

In Wellington, huge walking “checkpoints” bearing Foreign Minister Murray McCully’s face will block entry into Parliament grounds tomorrow morning, barring any members of Parliament that cannot produce documentation to prove they are not Invercargill-born.

“We refuse to recognise the legitimacy of any politicians from Invercargill.” says spokesperson Ben Knight.

“It’s clearly not a real city, so how can people from there be expected to represent us in Government?”

Knight says “the checkpoint towers bear Mr McCully’s face, because he’s taught us that sometimes it’s hard to recognise whether or not somewhere is a real place, even if most people think it is.”

The event on Parliament grounds marks the opening of ‘Unrecognised’, an international human rights-focused photographic exhibition. The exhibitions commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Springbok tour anti-apartheid movement in New Zealand, and seek to draw attention to Murray McCully’s upcoming vote in the UN General Assembly on whether or not New Zealand recognises Palestine as a state.

Contributors to the exhibition include veteran human rights campaigner John Minto, highly acclaimed South African photographer Omar Badsha (co-founder of the influential Afrapix photography collective), prominent Israeli/Palestinian photography collective ActiveStills, activist Tame Iti, musician Imon Starr, and South African film-maker Mark Fredericks, as well as more than 50 photographers/artists from around New Zealand.

The exhibition will also be showing at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in East London, South Africa.

‘Unrecognised’ opens in Wellington at 5pm at the Garrett Street exhibition space on Friday (August 19th).

ENDS

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