'Native portraits', 1994-97
Acknowledgements
Copyright Reproduced courtesy of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Creator
Lisa Reihana, artist, 1994-97
Identifiers
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa number 1999-0007-1/2
TLF resource R5401
Source
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, http://www.tepapa.govt.nz
Description
This is a multimedia installation combining video and sound by New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana. The
installation has two major components, a large waharoa, a gateway, made from steel shelving with
eleven 71-cm video monitors and two 'old-style' wood and glass museum display cabinets that house
six small monitors. One of these cabinets can be seen in the background. The installation shows
moving and still images of Reihana's Māori friends and family acting out a series of vignettes that
relate to issues of identity and representation. The measurements of the installation are 367.0 cm (h) x
356.5 cm (w) x 79.5 cm. (d)
Educational valueā
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This asset highlights an artwork, three years in the making, commissioned for the opening of
the new Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, in 1998 - the commission reflected Te
Papa's intention to tell stories about living people as well as about artefacts while drawing on
ideas of history, time, tourism and technology.
It highlights the work of a significant contemporary Māori artist of Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Hine, Ngāi
Tu (Māori tribes) and European descent - Lisa Reihana (1964-) is part of a generation of Māori
artists who trained in art schools in the 1970s and 1980s, including Jacqueline Fraser, Peter
Robinson and Michael Parekowhai; Reihana draws on Māori and European influences to
create art that has had an impact in New Zealand and overseas.
It represents the artist's literal interpretation of the museum's collection of 19th-century studio
photographs, such as the Burton Brothers' photographs, and postcards - shown via a huge
imagebank of moving and still images that mirror such photographs, Reihana also explores
issues of identity and representation using elements of kapa haka (action dance) and
traditional European portraiture.
It highlights a hugely ambitious and groundbreaking work - using digital installation, which was
then a new medium not widely collected or shown by galleries, the work illustrates the artist's
intention to explore the ethnographic and museum practices of collecting, cataloguing and
encasing objects, cultures and individuals, as well as their photographic representation,
particularly tourist imagery and stereotypes.
It highlights the use of a traditional Māori waharoa (gateway) with video monitors allowing
ancestral carvings to come to life - this gives visitors the notion that they are standing outside
a meeting house gate before being allowed to walk through onto the marae, or sacred meeting
area, which in this case is reinforced by the image of a Māori with a Stop/Go sign that is used
like a taiaha (long club).
It illustrates Reihana's use of role-play, narrative and portraiture in her work - this is
demonstrated by the adaptation of 19th-century glass cases from the Māori hall in the old
Dominion Museum to house the video monitors and present viewers with moving images as
opposed to dead objects with cardboard labels describing the exhibit.
It represents a piece of contemporary New Zealand art that has been successfully exhibited in
Australia, the USA, Germany and France.
© Curriculum Corporation and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2006, except where
indicated under Acknowledgements
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