Lisa Reihana’s large video installation In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] is being shown at the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, from 13 June, 2024, until 5 January, 2025.
The video was inspired by the colourful, French wallpaper “Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique”, produced by Joseph Dufour in the early nineteenth century. Her presentation depicts various encounters between Europeans and Polynesians in the South Pacific, set against a backdrop of forests, volcanic mountains and lagoons. Within this mesmerising backdrop, realistic human figures illustrate various interactions between two disparate cultures and peoples, European and Polynesian. There is island dancing and drumming, astronomical observations, floggings of sailors and natives, various melees between the two groups, and re-enactments of traditional island legends.
For more information, visit https://moa.ubc.ca/exhibition/in-pursuit-of-venus-infected/