Native Portraits n.19897

Native Portraits n.19897
Native Portraits n.19897 is a multimedia installation using video and sound. It is made up of two major components: a large waharoa (gateway) made from stacked video monitors, and two 'old style' museum cabinets and smaller monitors. The work was initially commissioned for the opening of Te Papa in 1997 and was part of contemporary project 'Art Now Looks back' curated by Ian Wedde and Megan Tamati-Quennell

Native Portraits n.19897 draws on ideas of history, time, tourism, and technology. It looks at the ethnographic and museum practices of collecting, cataloguing, and encasing objects, cultures, and individuals, as well as at the practice of photographic representation, particularly tourist imagery, and stereotypes.
Reihana revisits nineteenth-century studio photographs, such as the Burton Brothers collection from Te Papa's collection. She injects new life into these historic photographs by reconceptualising them alongside contemporary issues such as identity, indigeneity, and representation. The 'sittings' staged by Reihana incorporate vignettes, portraiture, role play, and narrative woven through with irony and wit.