The MIGHTY MONGREL MOB is where gangs, culture, and the Maori lands of Aotearoa (New Zealand) intersect. Photographer Jono Rotman partnered with this notorious gang to take some of the most visually arresting portraits that have ever been taken of the underworld. It’s like you can read each member’s life story on his face, beyond the tattoos, patches, and leather.
Because of their trust and what was being gifted to me in their engagement, I have a responsibility to them that the work is not something that I just take away from them. The project’s relationship to them is really important to both the spirit and power of the work.
– Jono Rotman
Rotman published these Mongrel Mob portraits in his 2018 book, Mongrelism, and he collaborated with members to ensure they were shown in the correct order to reflect their geographic, familial, and hierarchical relationships — and I would like to acknowledge that I most definitely got that wrong in this post. No disrespect meant to the Mongrel Mob members featured here or the photographer.
All photos © Jono Rotman
Rotman was “thinking about male power and the extremes of how that is presented in the human experience”. He remembers, “On the one side, you have established modes of corporate, military and state control. For me, ‘gangism’ is on the same spectrum of group adherence. Only with gangs, it’s committing to something beyond the established social ecology.” Through contacts suggested by a gang liaison within the police force, Rotman initially planned to photograph members of various New Zealand gangs, estimates of which indicate there are 25 affiliations on the small islands nation, with a total membership that outnumbers the country’s own army.
“It is a fertile subject,” he explains. “But for me, the Mongrel Mob ultimately felt like they have the most unique identity, the most searing percolation of the forces at play.”
Since emerging in the early 1960s, the Mongrel Mob has grown to more than 30 chapters with a carefully developed and fostered reputation produced through committing some of the country’s most notorious crimes. Early members describe the group’s inception as a response to the poor treatment and abuse they endured while in state care. Although the founding members were primarily white, the majority of today’s Mob members are Maori, a group that has, despite proclamations of shared sovereignty since the 19th century, suffered continued marginalisation and subjugation. The inequity and discrimination experienced by many of the gang’s Maori members has also fuelled the Mob’s evolution.
In 2014, eight of Rotman’s Mongrel Mob portraits were shown at the Gow Langsford Gallery in Auckland. The exhibition provoked heated public debate and media criticism, especially given that one of the included subjects was then on trial for murder with the victim’s father pleading to the gallery and artist to remove the photograph. A spokesperson from an anti-crime advocacy group deplored the work, asserting, “I think it is glorifying gang culture and completely offensive to their victims, and the members of the public and society who live a socially acceptable and tolerated life.”
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