Rainbow country

Hundreds of brightly coloured, crocheted circles spread out like a burst of lush flowers, a darting school of tropical fish, or a floating archipelago.

Ani O’Neill grew up in Auckland, a city that is home to more Pacific peoples than anywhere else worldwide. She is among a new generation of Pasifika artists whose work is both charting and changing the country’s cultural landscape. Increasingly, New Zealand is a ‘rainbow country’.

O’Neill’s Cook Islands grandmother taught her to sew and crochet – skills that Pacific women originally learned from the wives of Christian missionaries. In Rainbow country, O’Neill brings these domestic crafts into a fine-art context. She also draws on areas as diverse as pop art, street fashion, and reggae.