About the Artist: Lisa Reihana

Abstract

About the Artist:Lisa Reihana Moana Nepia Through a pioneering practice combining photography, video, and installation, Lisa Reihana has achieved what most artists only ever dream about: she makes a full-time living from her art. Of Māori Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tū, and Ngāti Hine descent, she has had her work exhibited in museums, art galleries, and art festivals around the world, including the Auckland Art Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland, October Gallery in London, Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center in New Caledonia, and Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Moana Nepia In 2017, Reihana represents Aotearoa/New Zealand at the Venice Biennale with Emissaries, which includes in Pursuit of Venus [infected], a 32-minute and 23-meter-long video projection inspired by Josef Dufour’s 1804 French scenic wallpaper Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique (http://www.inpursuitofvenus.com) Utilizing green-screen technology to superimpose performers against a back-drop based on Dufour’s whimsical Tahitian landscape, Reihana’s vignettes explore meetings between Polynesian ancestors and early European explorers. Historic characters such as Captain James Cook present glimpses into some of the darker “infected” moments of those encounters and also into the scientific motives for European expeditions alluded to in the title. Monumental in scale, this work follows similarly striking presentations in Venice by other Māori artists such as Michael Parekowhai, Rachael Rakena, and Brett Graham. Stills from in Pursuit of Venus [infected] appear in this issue along with images from Reihana’s earlier video and photographic work. Her philosophy is “making” rather than “taking,” with a long-standing emphasis on portraiture photographs and historical and ancestral narratives. The collaborative nature of Reihana’s practice is made possible with the help of her family, numerous friends, and fellow artists. [End Page VII] Click for larger view View full resolution in Pursuit of Venus [infected] (detail 1), by Lisa Reihana, 2015. hd video, color, sound, 32 min. Vignettes in iPOVi, including the tattooing of a European sailor, reconstruct actual and imaginary encounters between indigenous Pacific Islanders and early European explorers. As Anne Salmond has suggested, such meetings were “sometimes explosive and destructive (‘infected’), sometimes genial and creative . . . world-shifting encounters” (quoted in the exhibition catalog Lisa Reihana: In Pursuit of Venus, edited by Rhana Devenport and Clare McIntosh [2015, 3]). [End Page VIII] Click for larger view View full resolution Diva, by Lisa Reihana, 2007. Photographic print on aluminum, 2000 x 1200 mm, from Digital Marae. Diva features among a collection of photographic representations of atua (ancestral deities) and contemporary icons in Reihana’s ongoing Digital Marae installation, which transforms gallery spaces to resemble wharenui (meeting houses) using digital imagery in place of wooden carvings and woven panels. [End Page IX] Click for larger view View full resolution Dandy, by Lisa Reihana, 2007. Photographic print on aluminum, 2000 x 1200 mm, from Digital Marae. Countering stereotypical depictions of Māori masculinity, strength, and prowess that focus on physical accomplishments on the battlefield or rugby playgrounds, Reihana’s Dandy, with full-face moko (tattoo) and Victorian attire, asserts a quietly confident sense of elegance and poise. [End Page X] Click for larger view View full resolution Hinepukohurangi, by Lisa Reihana, 2001. Photographic print on aluminum, 2000 x 1000 mm, from Digital Marae. Described as “Children of the Mist,” Ngāi Tūhoe people from Aotearoa trace their ancestry from Hinepukohurangi, the mist that surrounds their mountains and cloaks their valleys. [End Page XI] Click for larger view View full resolution Maui, by Lisa Reihana, 2007. Photographic print on aluminum, 2000 x 1200 mm. From Digital Marae. The ancestral demigod Maui features in creation stories across the Pacific as a creative innovator, trickster, and instigator of change. Having hauled new lands up from the ocean floor, slowed down the sun, and sourced the secret of fire, he is depicted in Digital Marae as surfing a wave toward us. Maui role model for the power of transformative thinking. [End Page XII] Click for larger view View full resolution Mahuika, by Lisa Reihana, 2001. Photographic print on aluminum...