Through a pioneering practice combining photography, video and installation Lisa Reihana employs a philosophy of ‘making’ rather than 'taking’, with a long standing emphasis on portraiture and historical ancestral narratives. The collaborative nature of her practice is made possible with the help of family, friends and fellow artists.

Reihana’s work has been exhibited in and collected by museums, art galleries, and art festivals world-wide. In 2017 she represented Aotearoa / New Zealand at the Venice Biennale with Emissaries which included in Pursuit of Venus [infected], a 64-minute and 24 meter long video inspired by Josef Dufour’s 1804 French scenic wallpaper Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique.

Her most recent project is a monumental moving-image work that overlooks the central atrium of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new building in the Sydney Modern. GROUNDLOOP takes us on a voyage across the lands, sea and skies of our region. In this imagined future, the ocean is a superhighway – an everyday connector between Indigenous voyagers from Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia; a path along which ancestral stories circulate.

Lisa Reihana is a Board Member for Haerewa, Auckland Art Gallery’s Māori Advisory Group and is a trustee for Wairau Māori Art Gallery. She has recieved several awards. Lisa has an Arts Laureate and has been recognised with the Te Tohu Toi Kē award from Creative NZ. She was made a Member of the NZ Order of Merit (MNZM) in 2018, then the Companion of the NZ Order of Merit (CNZM) in 2022 for services to art.

‍

‍