A portrait changed our perspective

In 2023, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles jointly acquired Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai (c.1776).

Mai lived from approximately 1753 to circa 1780 and was a young man from Ra‘iatea, one of the Leeward Islands in the middle of the South Pacific. He became the first Polynesian to visit Britain when he arrived onboard HMS Adventure in 1774.

At The Box, Plymouth, we took on the challenge of presenting Mai within the complex context of the city’s local and global histories in our exhibition Journeys with Mai, on until 14 June.

In the late 18th century, Plymouth was a major seaport deeply connected to British colonial expansion.

This exhibition encourages audiences to think critically about shared histories, early encounters between Europeans and Pacific Island peoples and empire. Across four galleries, Journeys with Mai offers a route through Captain Cook’s three world voyages, all of which departed from Plymouth between 1768-79 at a time when Britain’s imperial focus was shifting.

As the American War of Independence (1775-83) diminished British colonial power in the west, Cook’s “voyages of discovery” played a significant role in expanding its influence across the Pacific, leading to the colonisation of both New Zealand and Australia.

Mai visited Plymouth twice, in 1775 and again in 1776 as he prepared to return to the South Pacific. His presence in the city now, 250 years later, offers an opportunity to rethink early encounters between Pacific peoples and Europeans from multiple perspectives.

The exhibition considers the role of museums in presenting complex histories, including colonisation, the shadowy presence of vandalism and cultural destruction – as well as the legacies of these processes.

Cook’s expeditions involved botanists, scientists and, for the first time, artists who spent extended periods in the South Pacific mapping, recording and claiming islands. They documented people, landscapes, flora and fauna, and collected thousands of cultural objects. Stolen, traded, gifted and collected, many of these are now held in British museums and have shaped European perceptions of South Pacific people and cultures.

Working with Studio naama, we created an immersive environment inspired by museum stores. Historic paintings, drawings and objects are arranged on metal mesh screens, encouraging visitors to look closely, question power structures and re-examine ideas of empire from different angles.

The project aims to build a legacy for the portrait while exploring its contemporary relevance. Its tour and surrounding research, interpretation and commissions are supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and so far the painting has toured to Bradford District Museums and Galleries and the Fitzwilliam Museum (in partnership with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge) before reaching The Box.

To unravel Mai’s contemporary relevance, our exhibition has a dedicated gallery that features Māori artist Lisa Reihana’s monumental video work In Pursuit of Venus [infected], offering a Pacific-centred reinterpretation of Cook’s voyages. The work provides a powerful contemporary counterpoint and allowed us to be more ambitious in our own interpretive approach.

A new commission by Mohini Chandra, Expedition into a Volcano, responds directly to Reynolds’ portrait. Drawing on the painting’s idealised backdrop, Chandra explores how such imagined landscapes have shaped Western ideas of “paradise” while revealing the connections between exploration, scientific endeavour and colonial extraction.

Tahitian artist Hinatea Colombani’s soundscape evokes the rhythms of “tapa” (barkcloth) making and the natural world of Tahiti. It connects visitors to the sights and sounds that would have surrounded Mai, highlighting ancestral knowledge, botanical practices and cultural memory.

Journeys with Mai presents multiple viewpoints rather than a single narrative, inviting visitors to consider the complexities of our shared histories framed within the story of a remarkable young man called Mai.

Hannah Hooks is contemporary art curator at The Box, Plymouth