Artwork Information

*Victor Sitting*, 2007 is part of Lisa Reihana's series *Digital Marae*, 2007, an ongoing project named with a collective title that references the spiritual and cultural space called the marae. The series explores masculinity, power and gender. The work is an investigation of turangawaewae (a place to stand) of creating and experiencing identity, in a virtual space. The artist summarises her approach to digital media and to ideas of identity with this statement:

'If there is any Māori philosophy that I work with more than any other, it is that sense of community. I love people and the notion of community, friends and places to come together, so I utilise my work, digital and actual, to play around with that idea …'

Reihana dramatically stages cultural concepts using iconic identities to play out her values and understandings of ‘belonging’. She draws on contemporary signs and symbols to show and ongoing interest in identity and the place of identity in urban society. In this series, she employs Māori identities from the present-day atua and heroes from Māori culture. The heroic identities evoke her communities: family, the inner city, the ancient and historic, and are proudly Māori people.

*Victor Sitting* depicts Victor Taurewa Biddle, activist and presenter of the Māori Television show 'Takatāpui', the world’s first Indigenous LGBTTQIA+ series. He also is the model for *Dandy*, also in the *Digital Marae* series.