in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 2015-17
- REIHANA, Lisa - Creator
Object details
- Accession No.
-
2015.045
- Date Created
-
2015-17
- Department
- Dimensions A
-
AV 00:00:00
- Edition
-
ed. 2/5
- Media Category
- Secondary Media Category
- Medium
-
Single-channel Ultra HD video: 64 minutes (looped), 7.1 surround sound, colour
- Place Created
- Credit Line
-
Purchased 2015 with funds from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation Appeal and Paul and Susan Taylor
Lisa Reihana’s panoramic video installation in Pursuit of Venus [infected] 2015-17 is based on the French panoramic wallpaper Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique (The Voyages of Captain Cook) 1805, designed by Jean-Gabriel Charvet for the French entrepreneur Joseph Dufour. In creating this early European representation of the peoples of Oceania during first contact, Charvet was inspired by Captain James Cook’s 1769 voyage south to witness the transit of Venus across the sun and the subsequent search for ‘Terra Australis’. From a Polynesian, Māori or Aboriginal point of view, Charvet’s imagery relies more on an Enlightenment-era imagination than truth.
Reihana’s high-definition immersive vision creates a stage for complex cross-cultural encounters, as she turns the tables on the flat, generic green plains of the original wallpaper design which conflated Oceanic locations with European Neoclassicism. The work shows contemporary indigenous performers, community elders and cultural practitioners engaged in culturally specific acts and ceremonies - including dance, storytelling, tattooing and trade - that are both playful and subversive. Meanwhile, actors playing the British seafarers observe, misunderstand and disrupt daily proceedings.
The panoramic nature of Reihana’s multi-screen, surround-sound projection ensures the audience’s point-of-view is that of a tangata whenua (person of the land). This viewpoint ‘infects’ the representations found in these fanciful nineteenth-century wallpaper designs, in effect confining them to the distant past.
Other QAGOMA resources
Copyright and sharing information
Citations
Rights information
© Lisa Reihana
Reproduction requests
Images of artworks on this website may be used for research, study and other related exceptions as defined by section 40 of the Copyright Act 1968 (as amended) without applying for specific permission. All other uses of the content of this site (where applicable). Refer these requests to reproductions. For more information, see copyright and reproductions on the QAGOMA website.
Re-use metadata
Share
HELP UNLOCK THE COLLECTION
Bring more artworks to life with digital archives, immersive 3D experiences and stories about artists, their communities and practices.