Te Wheke-a-Muturangi: The Adversary, soon to be installed as part of Sydney Festival 2024, will continue Lisa Reihana’s exploration of the journeys our ancestors took across the great oceans to the land of Aotearoa. Europeans followed the transit of the planet Venus across the skies in 1769, which Reihana reimagined in her 2017 Venice Biennale work In Pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015). For Māori, it was the giant octopus Te Wheke- a-Muturangi that guided them to these lands, when Kupe chased her from Hawaiki to the east coast of Aotearoa. The work was first exhibited in Te Whanganui- a-Tara Wellington’s Whairepo Lagoon, across the Cook Strait from the site where Kupe defeated the great sea creature in the outer Marlborough Sounds. Reihana’s large inflatable sculpture brings the octopus back to life as a goddess-like presence on the water, a gesture to her importance in Aotearoa’s early history and to her sacrifice. In Reihana’s interpretation, the Adversary is also the Māreikura, a supernatural being who carries knowledge from the world of the gods to people. Te Wheke-a-Muturangi will now bear this knowledge and the stories of Aotearoa’s early history across the Tasman Sea to Australia, where the sculpture will be installed at Waterman’s Cove for the festival’s duration.

Perhaps as if greeting Te Wheke, Luther Cora and the Yugambeh Aboriginal Dancers will present an open-air performance in collaboration with Arc Circus Co. Named How the Birds Got Their Colours, it recounts a famous Dreamtime story from the Bardi nation on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, reimagining the origins of Australia’s native birds through a fusion of customary dance and contemporary circus. These and many other events will take place at venues across the city.