Acclaimed Māori artist Lisa Reihana's "Voyager" exhibition at Ngununggula Southern Highlands Regional Gallery presents a stunning collection of video art, photography, and installations that distort and reimagine concepts of time, space, and mythology. The exhibition, running until November 9, marks the first solo international artist showcase at the gallery, which opened to the public in 2021.

Ngununggula, meaning "belonging to the people" in Gundungurra language, is housed in repurposed buildings from the historic Retford Park estate, donated by the National Trust through the James Fairfax Foundation. The gallery complex, featuring a timber-facade entrance designed by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, occupies the former brick dairy and veterinary shed of the late James Fairfax's country estate. The Victorian mansion itself remains discretely hidden behind hedges and copses, its Portuguese pink facade occasionally visible through the treeline.

The centerpiece of Reihana's exhibition is "Belong," a new site-specific installation created specifically for Ngununggula and its surroundings. This striking work covers the gallery's exterior with hundreds of reflective metal discs woven together in patterns that emulate tāniko weaving found on the fringes of traditional Māori kākahu cloaks. The zigzag and chevron patterns represent both the arms of warriors performing haka and the mountains and meeting places of the Southern Highlands region.

When wind moves through the installation, the metallic discs create a rippling, shimmering effect. Even in still conditions, the gallery's air-conditioning system causes portions of the work to flutter like condensation dripping down the building's side. The overall effect transforms the gallery into what appears to be a building dressed in festive tinsel, ready to host a celebration. This disc-weaving technique represents a relatively new direction for Reihana, who has also employed it in "Glisten" (2024) for the National Gallery of Singapore and in recent work for Sydney Contemporary.

Reihana, whose work was featured at the New Zealand pavilion during the 2017 Venice Biennale, is best known for her video art that often draws from location and context, exploring the intersection of artifacts and people within specific places. Her approach typically involves reimagining or retelling myths and presenting new perspectives on history by shifting viewpoints to enrich narratives. This methodology was prominently displayed in her Venice work, "In Pursuit of Venus [infected]" (2015), which remixed 19th-century French wallpaper into panoramic video, retelling the story of European colonization of the Pacific from an altered perspective.

The "Voyager" exhibition embraces the fundamental storytelling concept that there are essentially two types of narratives: someone leaving on a journey, or a stranger coming to town. Reihana recognizes these as the same story told from different perspectives, making this duality central to her work. Her art demonstrates reverence for various forms of depiction, both in their methods and media, as well as the phenomenological experiences they embody.

"Māramatanga" (2024) exemplifies this approach through a video featuring dancers representing ancestral figures, referencing carvings in a meeting house at Auckland University and featuring performers from the institution's dance school. The characters rotate like figurines in a virtual music box, while backdrops of natural images including seas, forests, and waterfalls appear fractalised and kaleidoscopic, recalling patterns found on tukutuku panels traditionally used to decorate meeting houses.

Another significant work, "GOLD_LEAD_WOOD_COAL" (2024), was commissioned by Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong as a panoramic video exploring the story of a 1902 shipwreck off New Zealand's coast. The vessel was carrying the bones of 500 Cantonese gold miners, which washed ashore and were ceremonially cared for and buried according to Māori custom. This piece demonstrates Reihana's ability to weave together diverse cultural narratives and historical events.

The cinematography throughout Reihana's works is particularly striking, incorporating religious elements both in spiritual tendency and in the treatment of iconography and artifacts. Unusual depth-of-field choices and unconventional angles create a sense of vertigo, producing what can be described as a cosmically funky feeling similar to the experience of distorted metaphysics. This effect resembles the sensation of warped gravity and time that occurs when staring up at painted cathedral ceilings or watching wuxia films. Reihana acknowledges her appreciation for kung fu movies, which influences this aesthetic approach.

"CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN – A REVERIE" (2020) demonstrates this aesthetic philosophy through what functions as a panoramic screensaver biography of the famous shoemaker, told through objects he has designed, collected, or been influenced by. A kaleidoscopic stiletto floats and rotates like a sacred relic, surrounded by a mysterious golden halo in a moment that evokes Quentin Tarantino's cinematic style. The piece, like its subject, is simultaneously gaudy, sensational, and fascinating.

Reihana's work demonstrates a broad appetite for various art forms, positioning her as both a listener to stories and a teller of them. Her ability to translate mythic figures from static panels into kinetic, moving images creates a unique visual language that bridges traditional and contemporary artistic expression. The exhibition reveals an artist who understands the power of shifting perspectives to create new meanings from familiar narratives.

The gallery's rural setting adds another layer to the exhibition experience. Visitors encounter kangaroos lounging in dry riverbeds with an almost James Dean-like coolness, moving away from approaching cars with sullen, disaffected attitudes rather than typical melodramatic bounds. The surrounding landscape includes solar panel installations, paddocks with energetic calves, and the pastoral grounds of Retford Park, creating a distinctly Australian context for Reihana's exploration of cultural intersections and colonial histories.

"Lisa Reihana: Voyager" continues at Ngununggula Southern Highlands Regional Gallery through November 9, offering visitors an opportunity to experience how contemporary Māori art can reshape understanding of history, mythology, and cultural exchange through innovative video art and installation techniques.