[1] Her video work, In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] (2015), which examines early encounters between Polynesians and European explorers, was featured at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

Using footage of collection items filmed on an earlier visit to the museum, Reihana made a video of "multi-layered images and animated tukutuku patterns" that she played on a screen mounted behind the teketeko.

One is the desire to re-examine colonial history, to excavate, remember and re-present countless micro-histories and counter-memories in formally experimental ways.

[13] Six years in the making, the work is based on a large 19th-century scenic wallpaper, Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique, created by French firm Joseph Dufour et Cie which depicts a romanticised view of the landscapes and people of the Pacific.

[13] Using the landscape forms of the wallpaper as a backdrop, Reihana added live action scenes recorded in front of green screens, showing interactions between Europeans and Polynesians.

[14] Reihana worked with theatre director Rachel House, actors and students from the Pacific Institute of Performing Arts to create this 32-minute film installation.

In a review of the work, John Hurell writes: In this eagerly anticipated, but not hyped up, narrative packed panorama by Lisa Reihana (it is as good as the advance publicity claimed), its loop of thirty-two minutes duration holds its audience enthralled, being the very best kind of spectacle.

Not only is this seamlessly blended array of five video projections sensual - with its sweeping landscape, figure groupings, body movement, leafy textures and dramatic music - but it is thoroughly researched, being packed with much detailed historical information.

[21] Reihana represented New Zealand at the 2017 Venice Biennale, where she showed an updated version of In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] and a new suite of photographic works.