Lisa Reihana
Aotearoa New Zealand b.1964
Digital Marae (detail) 2001
Colour cibachrome photographs mounted on aluminium and DVD: 3:30 minutes,
colour, sound
200 x 100cm
Purchased 2002
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Lisa Reihana
Digital Marae 2001
Lisa Reihana has played a significant role in the artistic development of multimedia and film in Aotearoa New Zealand.
With Digital Marae 2001, she explores her Maori culture. Drawing on customs and contemporary experience, she evokes the structure of a Marae (meeting place). The women embody Maori tribal lore and are filled with the timeless emotions of love, fury, greed and the strength of kinship.
In this work, Mahuika is tricked by her grandson Maui into giving him all the fire she possesses in her nails. Living in the underworld, her full skirt scorches and steams with hot lava and earth. Hinewai, the youngest of the women, is near her and represents familial ties in her care for both Mahuika and her sister, Hinepukohurangi. At daybreak, Hinewai beckons her sister to leave the worldly realm of desire that she succumbs to nightly with the mortal Uenuku.
Let there be light, an accompanying DVD that gives the figures in Digital Marae life, continues Reihana's interest in moving image and performance.
