Overview
In 1804, French entrepreneur Joseph Dufour used his latest printing innovations to produce a 20-panel scenic wallpaper portraying encounters between Europeans and Pacific indigenous people titled Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique ("The Savages Of the Pacific Ocean"). More than 200 years later, Maori artist Lisa Reihana has taken that wallpaper imagery and combined it with 21st century digital innovations to turn the original work into an animated video.
The exhibition repurposes colonial art and reappropriates cultural identity. "in Pursuit of Venus [infected] returns the gaze of imperialism with a speculative twist that disrupts notions of beauty, authenticity, history and myth", a spokesperson for the exhibition says.
Dufour's original prints echoed the West's deep fascination with the Pacific voyages which Captain Cook, de Bougainville and de la Perouse had undertaken; 'the exotic other' a popular thing to illustrate during the Enlightenment, while Reihana provides a darker, more dystopian, realistic narrative which highlights the complexities of cultural identity and colonisation.