In Conversation: Lisa Reihana and Dr James Fox - Thursday 14 May

6.30-7.30pm
Doors open at 6pm
Event ends at 8pm

We're delighted to welcome New Zealand-based artist Lisa Reihana to The Box Plymouth for this special talk. Reihana, whose monumental video work In Pursuit of Venus [infected] is part of our major Journeys with Mai exhibition, joins Dr James Fox from the University of Cambridge and Honorary Fellow (2024) of Arts University Plymouth, to discuss the themes in their work and the exhibition.

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.