Transformed in Sydney

Auckland-based artist Lisa Reihana will consider “what it means to transform the self into another persona”, at an upcoming exhibition entitled Double Take on at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from May 7 through July 19. Reihana’s digital photographs present friends and family posing as ancestral Maori spirit figures. Since 2006, Reihana has had major solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Italy and been included in numerous international group exhibitions. ‘Digital marae 2007’, is conceived as a both a double and a transformation of the ancestral meeting house. Her life-size digital prints depict friends and family dressed as contemporary male deities (atua) that appear in Maori creation stories. “The new photographs in the latest incarnation [of ‘Digital Marae’] bring atua, male, and takatapui or cross-gendered figures to the installation, whereas the previous images were all of female forms,” Reihana says. Reihana was a 2008 Walter’s Prize finalist. She studied film and video at Elam School of Fine Art.