Native Portraits n.19897

Focused upon the practice of photographic representation, particularly tourist imagery, and stereotypes, Lisa Reihana’s Native Portraits n.19897 translates and recontextualises history through the aesthetic of nineteenth-century ‘cartes de visite’ from the thriving colonial New Zealand postcard industry where Maori were a popular subject. It questions assumed historical knowledge, and how we use photography in battles of legitimacy and entitlement of territory and race. Native Portraits n.19897 is something of a counter balance because it empowers many of its subjects, capturing Maori culture as living, diverse, and resisting its traditional depiction in the museum as primitive and static.