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Overview
This travelling collection of objects belonged to Mani Bruce Mitchell (MNZM). Each object is a touchstone of memory and symbolic power.
Mani kept them in a small plastic container and took them wherever they travelled in the world, and would display them in hotel rooms as talismanic support as 'the most special and beautiful things that travelled with me' (Mitchell 2022).
The objects held space and provided colour, celebrating the diversity of the intersex community. Colour is hugely important to Mani as it works against the 'awful black and white medical photographs' taken of interex people in the past. 'We can tell our own story. We don't need doctors to tell our stories' (Mitchell, 2022).
Mani has devoted much of their adult life to raising awareness about intersex and gender variance. They began laying the foundations for the Intersex Society of New Zealand (Aotearoa) in 1996. The society was officially launched in 1997 and became Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand (ITANZ) in 1998.
Mani is considered the first person in New Zealand to publicly come out as intersex. They have contributed to initiatives to include intersex conditions in the fields of mental health, sexual health and medicine, and have helped many people on their own journeys.
In the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2021, Mani is believed to have been one of the first intersex, non-binary New Zealanders to be made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. They were awarded the honour for services to intersex advocacy and education.
References:
Conversation between Mani Bruce Mitchell and Te Papa curator Stephanie Gibson, Wellington, 15 September 2022.