In Conversation: Lisa Reihana and Dr James Fox

About Lisa Reihana
Born in 1964 in Aotearoa, New Zealand, Lisa Reihana is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice spans film, sculpture, text, photography, costume and body adornment. Her work explores how ideas of place, community, identity and history are represented. Challenging Western historical and contemporary stereotypes, In Pursuit of Venus (infected) foregrounds the complexities of cultural identity and colonisation. It returns and twists the gaze of imperialism, disrupting notions of beauty, authenticity, history and myth.

Since the 1990s, Reihana has significantly influenced the development of decolonial practice and contemporary Māori art in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She has earned an outstanding reputation as an artist, producer and cultural advocate.

About Dr James Fox
Fox is an art historian, presenter and Honorary Fellow (2024) of Arts University Plymouth. He is also a curator and award-winning, BAFTA-nominated broadcaster who fell in love with art at the age of six and hasn't looked back. Fox specialises in modern art, British art and the cultural history of colour.

He is currently Director of Studies in History of Art at Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Director of Education at the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park in Canada; and President of the Friends of the Stanley Spencer Gallery. Convinced of art's huge social importance, he works with museums, schools, charities and the media to engage broader audiences in this most life-enhancing of subjects.

This lecture is part of a series of events arranged in partnership with Arts University Plymouth. Arts University Plymouth awarded an Honorary Fellowship to Dr James Fox in 2024 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the study of Art and Cultural History.

Image: Lisa Reihana, detail In Pursuit of Venus (infected), 2015–2017. Courtesy of the artist, New Zealand at Venice and Artprojects.