Journeys with Mai: Contemporary Artists Reframing Mai’s Story

Following on from our blog post last week that looked at the early artworks in ‘Journeys with Mai’, we’re now looking at the contemporary artworks.

These artworks are a response to the early works, to reframe Mai’s journey and challenge the colonial images that were created during Cook’s voyages. They give a voice to Pacific Islander people, help us ask questions about how the images of the early works recorded the encounters between British and Pacific Islander people, and update our thinking about Mai and his story for contemporary audiences.

Lisa Reihana (b. 1964)

Reihana is a multi-disciplinary artist from New Zealand. In 2017, she represented her country at the Venice Biennale with Pursuit of Venus (infected), which you can see in our South Gallery. The work is a major contemporary reinterpretation of Cook-era encounters, where Reihana confronts colonial visual culture to restore Pacific Islander presence at a monumental scale.

This large-scale video animates and “infects” an 1804 colonial wallpaper to reassert Pacific voices. It also adds scenes that were not included in European accounts, such as the trading of nails for sex. Reihana’s inspiration came when she saw the work Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.

The work’s title refers to the instructions Cook had for recording the transit of Venus; work that helped open up the globe for the benefit of empire, and the devastating impact that this early contact had.

Mohini Chandra (b. 1964)

Mohini Chandra is a Devon-based artist whose work explores identity, memory and globalised spaces. Drawing on her early experiences in Fiji and travelling within the Indian‑Fijian diaspora, she creates installations using still and moving image, sound and found objects, looking at migration, diaspora and the legacies of empire. Her work has been exhibited internationally in major shows and solo exhibitions in the UK and US.

Her work, a new commission titled Expedition into a Volcano takes its name from a 1962 education film in The Box moving image collection. The installation is Hurdle gallery and is a projection that can be walked through, with projections onto both sides of drapes that were inspired by Mai’s robes in the portrait.

This installation was inspired by the idealised tropical island backdrop of Reynolds's portrait of Mai. It explores how colonial science, exploration and extraction shaped ideas of the Pacific. The work makes us think about the environmental, economic and cultural impacts of empire.

Chandra spent time researching the film archives with The Box’s Media Archives team to uncover moving footage that, combined with new footage, reveals how empire constructed the idea of the “exotic”:

Volcanic lava samples from The Box collection are also displayed in the installation that represent the exploitation, extraction and mining that arguably came as a result of the early expeditions to the Pacific Islands.

Hinatea Colombani & Moeava Meder

Tahitian artists, Hinatea Colombani and Moeava Meder are founders of the 'Arioi cultural centre and work to promote Tahitian and Polynesian culture and traditions: from craftsmanship to Tahitian dance, history and secular rites.

VEVOVEVO MAI is a soundscape that revives the lost or endangered practice of tapa‑making (bark cloth making) through rhythm and sound. Created as an act of repair and reconnection between Mai's world and the present, it brings to life the sounds of the cultural practices of making traditional tapa in Tahiti today. These are sounds that would have surrounded Mai and that early European voyages would have experienced 250 years ago.

It gives us the sensory experiences Mai would have known, placing Tahitian knowledge at the exhibition’s core that is missing from 18th‑century European artworks.

Speaking before just before the exhibition launched, Colombani said of the tapa that Mai wears in the portrait:

The exhibition is free and on display until 14 June 2026. If you'd like to visit, we encourage you to book a free ticket in advance along with our Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy exhibition.