In Pursuit of New Narratives: An Indigenous-Led Salon with Artist Lisa Reihana

Lisa Reihana (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine Ngāi Tū) was born in 1964 in Auckland, New Zealand, where she continues to live and work. Spanning film, video, photography, installation, performance, design, costume, and sculptural form, Reihana’s art making is driven by a strong sense of community which informs her collaborative working method. Since the 1990s she has significantly influenced the development of contemporary art and contemporary Māori art in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reihana represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with the large-scale video installation in Pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015-17). Reihana’s work is held in private and public collections while Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki cares for the largest international holdings of the artist’s work.

in Pursuit of Venus [infected] is currently on view at MOA and closes on January 5, 2025, and Lisa Reihana will be in residence at Green College for two weeks in October 2024.

Photo credit: Jacquie Manning.

Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) is a scholar, poet, irredentist and māmā. Her publications include Once Were Pacific: Māori Connections to Oceania (2012), 250 Ways to Start an Essay about Captain Cook (2021) and a collection of poetry, Always Italicise: how to write while colonised (2022). Alice holds a joint professorial appointment at the University of British Columbia in the Department of English Language & Literatures (where she is Department Head) and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies.

Coll Thrush is professor of history and associate faculty in critical Indigenous studies at UBC. A settler scholar, Coll is the author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place (2007/2017) and Indigenous London: Native Travellers at the Heart of Empire (2016). His current book project, to be published in spring of 2025, is entitled Wrecked: Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific.