Originally commissioned by Te Papa Tongarewa, to begin this project Reihana sifted through the museum’s collection of nineteenth-century photo portraits of Māori. Taking these portraits as a starting point, she dressed up her Māori friends in old-fashioned and contemporary outfits and recorded them on video as if they were posing for a photographic portrait.
Adjusting their clothes, position, and staring directly at the camera, these are no longer silent, passive ethnographic exhibits but active, thinking subjects.
Native Portraits N.19897 confronts past and present-day representations of Māori, suggesting that while Māori may have more opportunities today than they once did, some stereotypes and prejudices remain.