Tiffany Singh: A Collective Voice

OM MANI PADME HUM is immersive - over 1500 metres of silk ribbon installed ceiling-to-floor create an all-encompassing colourful experience. With handmade fair trade bells adorning the bottom, each ribbon has the Buddhist mantra ‘om mani padme hum’ printed on it, referring to compassion and love for all things. The mantra was gifted to Singh for this work by her Buddhist teacher, Geshe Wangchen, and a recording of the mantra reverberates throughout the space.

The Journey of a Million Miles Begins with One Step is both an expansive installation and an ambitious oral history project. The work invites visitors to listen to stories of migration to Aotearoa, and to share their own in an interactive element. In what is a charged political context both globally and nationally, by sharing these personal stories Singh hopes to encourage understanding and compassion across identities and experiences, and explores what it means to exist within a community comprised of both the settled and re-settled.

https://vimeo.com/196484336

This partnership project between Singh and the Auckland Resettled Community Coalition (ARCC) aimed to strengthen newcomers and resettled community voices for better resettlement outcomes. The project attempted to redefine the understanding of what it means to be a part of the resettled community, by providing a platform for stories to be heard in a celebration of tolerance and diversity to restore a solidarity to the heart of human culture.  Come and listen to the Stories of Resettlement as a part of the exhibition Collective Voice by Tiffany Singh 09.06.18 — 05.08.18

Auckland Resettled Community Coalition (ARCC) is a grassroots, non-profit organisation acting as a local and regional umbrella organisation founded and led by resettled leaders/representatives from refugee backgrounds. We are a collective voice of newcomers and resettled communities from ethnically diverse backgrounds in the Auckland region. We strive to bridge the gap between our communities and service providers to achieve greater understanding, smooth resettlement, and positive integration.  ARCC is the advocates and voice on behalf of the resettled communities from refugee background of Auckland by promoting a sustainable and integration resettlement approach that maintains the cultural identities of resettled communities and allows them to thrive in their new home country. With 18 current member communities group from 15 different countries, we have the expertise, experience and cultural tools to support and advocate for services and policy that deliver positive resettlement outcomes.

https://vimeo.com/221363308

Exploring the journeys made by migrants to New Zealand inspired by real-life experiences. Created by social practice artist, Tiffany Singh, the installation personalises and unpacks the conversations around the process of resettling in Aotearoa. Relevant and engaging, The Journey of a Million Miles – Following Steps enables COCA to be the connector of these narratives. Music, audio and digital technology are used to convey and share a variety of migration experiences that reflect the joy, heartache and confusion of moving to a new land.

Watch this very short film to hear why it is important that visitors come to COCA and share their immigration stories with us. So that they can be integrated into the exhibition to help us create a contemporary archive of immigration in New Zealand at this time.

Listen to 'Stories of Beyond Refuge' here.