ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters: Affirmation, Defiance, and Kānaka ʻŌiwi Visual Culture Today

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Notes

1 Throughout this article, we use the terms Kānaka ʻŌiwi, Kānaka, Native Hawaiians, and Hawaiians interchangeably to refer to the Indigenous people of Hawaiʻi. We do not italicise words in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian language; we do not place English translations of words in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi in parentheses; we do not translate proper nouns; and we only include translations following a word's first mention.

2 From our perspective, many of these institutions have exploited Native Hawaiian artists to advance their own agendas and generate positive publicity without making significant long-term commitments to decolonise and/or indigenise their commissioning, collecting, exhibiting, and/or educating practices. This was certainly the case with Nā Maka Hou: New Visions – Contemporary Native Hawaiian Art (2001), an exhibition presented as part of the inauguration of the Henry R. Luce Pavilion Complex at the then Honolulu Academy of Arts (now the Honolulu Museum of Art). Nā Maka Hou was the first and last time that the Honolulu Museum of Art organised a large-scale group exhibition of contemporary Native Hawaiian art. And, to this day, the museum has still not supported a large-scale solo exhibition by a Native Hawaiian artist in the main gallery of the Luce Pavilion. I [Drew] write extensively about the above example and the larger ʻwatershed moment’ for Kānaka artists within art institutions across Honolulu during the late 1990s and early 2000s in the essay ʻPre-CONTACT: Kanaka-Centric Exhibition-Making in Honolulu, Oʻahu at the Turn of the 21st-Century’, in CONTACT 2014–2019, eds. Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick, Marika Emi, Maile Meyer and Josh Tengan (Honolulu: Puʻuhonua Society and Tropic Editions, 2021), 271–90.

3 The two of us first collaborated with Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu in 2014, brought together by the efforts of my [Drew’s] mother, Maile Meyer, the then director of Honolulu-based arts organisation Puʻuhonua Society, which put on an annual open call thematic group exhibition, CONTACT, from 2014 to 2019. Each year two arts workers were invited, one Native Hawaiian and the other non-Native Hawaiian, to curate the exhibition. In 2015, Noelle and Ngharika Mason, curator of Māori Art at Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki from 1999 to 2015 curated the exhibition together. I [Josh] served as the project manager, and I [Drew] served as the exhibition designer and installer. In the years following, we three have worked together with Puʻuhonua Society in different capacities at different times to support art, exhibition-making, and education in Hawaiʻi.

4 In the early 1970s, after nearly a century of U.S. occupation, community struggles for sovereignty and self-determination erupted across the Islands. Galvanised by grassroots resistance efforts, including those of the community-based, archipelago-wide organisation Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana, artists and activists banded together to protect beloved ‘āina, land, that which feeds. Ever since, culturally informed political action and artistic expression remain closely linked in Kānaka art in Hawai‘i.

5 Our deepest gratitude to all of the participating artists and their families: Nālamakūikapō Ahsing, Bernice Akamine, Maile Andrade, Pam Barton, Meala Bishop, Sean Kekamakupaʻaikapono Kaʻonohiokalani Lee Loy Browne, Kahi Ching, Kaili Chun, Kauʻi Chun, Herman Piʻikea Clark, Kauka de Silva, April A.H. Drexel, Joy Lehuanani Enomoto, Solomon Robert Nui Enos, Bob Freitas, Noah Harders, Roen Hufford, Puni Jackson, Rocky KaʻiouliokahihikoloʻEhu Jensen, ʻĪmaikalani Kalāhele, Kamaʻāina Kidz, Kapulani Landgraf, Al Kahekiliuila Lagunero, Leimomi Lani, Lehuauakea, Nanea Lum, Marques Hanalei Marzan, Charlton Kūpaʻa Hee, Micah McDermott, Meleanna Aluli Meyer, Ipō and Kūnani Nihipali, Harinani Orme, Carl F.K. Pao, Tiare Ribeaux, Abigail Romanchak, Charlie Sinclair, Keith Tallett, Cory Kamehanaokalā Holt Taum, Maikaʻi Tubbs, and Kunāne Wooton.

6 Puʻuhonua Society is a Honolulu-based not-for-profit arts organisation that creates safe spaces and opportunities for Native Hawaiian and Hawai‘i-based artists and cultural practitioners to serve as translators/mediators/amplifiers of social justice issues in Hawaiʻi. Puʻuhonua Society traces part of its genealogy back to 1972, when Emma Aluli Meyer originally founded the organisation as the Young of Heart Workshop & Gallery in Kailua, Koʻolaupoko, O‘ahu, to inspire and empower young people through art and creativity. Maile Meyer, Emma’s third daughter, stewarded Puʻuhonua Society from 1996 until 2022, when her first daughter, Emma Broderick, took on the responsibilities of leading the organisation. Emma and I [Drew] are siblings and work closely with family to be of better service to communities.

7 ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters was partially funded through Native Arts and Cultures Foundation’s SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts program, which supports artist and community driven projects responding to social change issues through a Native lens. I [Drew] was the lead artist and I [Josh] along with Noelle was a collaborator, and Puʻuhonua Society was the lead partner organisation on a 2021 SHIFT award. For additional information see ʻDrew Kahuʻāina Broderick’, Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/drew-kahu%CA%BBaina-broderick.

8 In 2019, we participated in Independent Curators International (ICI)’s first Curatorial Intensive in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand. In 2020, we were invited to participate as curators in Notes for Tomorrow, a travelling group exhibition conceived by ICI ‘that took the COVID-19 pandemic as a jumping-off point for a radical reassessment of the present’. Building on this collaborative relationship and in support of the research phase of ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters, ICI awarded us a 2022 Indigenous Curatorial Research Fellowship. For additional information see ʻ2022 Curatorial Research Fellows: Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick and Josh Tengan’, Independent Curators International, https://curatorsintl.org/learning/20533-2022-curatorial-research-fellows-drew-kahuina-broderick-and-josh-tengan.

9 In 2020, at the invitation of the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA), I [Drew] along with artists and educators Kapulani Landgraf and Kaili Chun collaborated on a group exhibition, Mai ho‘ohuli i ka lima i luna at Hawaiʻi State Art Museum in Honolulu, Oʻahu. As part of the exhibition, the curatorial team conducted an unofficial assessment of the Foundation’s Art in Public Places Collection and determined that less than three per cent of the artwork in the collection was made by Kānaka artists despite accounting for over 20 percent of the population. The exhibition marked an important turning point for the SFCA, and in the years following the organisation has made more of an effort to support Kānaka artists through increased representation in the collection, exhibitions, and public programming. For additional information see Drew K. Broderick, Kaili Chun, and Kapulani Landgraf, ʻMai Hoʻohuli i ka lima i luna’, Honolulu: Hawaiʻi State Art Museum, 2020, https://sfca.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Mai-ho%CA%BBohuli-i-ka-lima-i-luna_Curators-Statement.pdf. As a result of this and other efforts, SFCA assembled two Acquisition Award Selection Committees to visit four of the six venues and recommend ten artworks from ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters for acquisition.

10 Liliʻuokalani to Sanford B. Dole, excerpt from James H. Blount, ʻReport of U.S. Special Commissioner James H. Blount to U.S. Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham Concerning the Hawaiian Kingdom Investigation’ (17 January 1893), Hawaiian Kingdom, https://hawaiiankingdom.org/blounts-report.shtml.

11 Eleanor C. Nordyke and Martha H. Noyes, ʻKaulana Nā Pua: A Voice for Sovereignty’, Hawaiian Journal of History 27, no.1 (1993): 28.

12 ʻHoolaulea Kanalima Makahiki’, Makaainana, 6 August 1894, 1, reproduced in ‘Henry Berger’s 50th birthday, and commentary on eating stones, 1894’, nupepa, 18 April 2015, https://nupepa-hawaii.com/2015/04/18/henry-bergers-50th-birthday-and-commentary-on-eating-stones-1894/.

13 ‘Nūpepa ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi’, Bishop Museum, accessed 1 May 2023, https://bishopmuseum.org/nupepa-olelo-hawaii/.

14 ʻHe ohu no ka poe aloha aina’, Ka Leo o ka Lahui, 24 February 1893, 1.

15 Kīhei de Silva, ʻReview: Buke Mele Lāhui, Book of National Songs’, Kaʻiwakīloumoku, https://kaiwakiloumoku.ksbe.edu/article/historical-snapshots-buke-mele-lahui-book-of-national-songs.

16 ‘The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Honolulu was founded as a land-grant institution in 1907, less than a decade after the contested annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the U.S. in 1898 under President William McKinley. The Morrill Land-Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890 armed the U.S. Federal Government with the power to transfer ‘federal land’, i.e., redistribute ‘Indigenous lands’ accumulated through settler colonialism to individual State Governments. In accordance with the Morrill Act’s provisions, land granted was to be used to generate funds through rental and/or sale for the establishment and endowment of colleges of agricultural and mechanical arts. [The college] was renamed the College of Hawai‘i and relocated from near Thomas Square to Mānoa Valley. Over the past century, the College of Hawai‘i morphed into the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and eventually expanded into a 10-campus, Islands-wide University of Hawai‘i System. The increased access to education that the System provides comes as a consequence of longstanding and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples across Hawai‘i, the continental U.S., and elsewhere.’ Broderick, ʻPre-CONTACT’, 279–80.

17 University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Art and Art History, ʻAbout Exhibitions + Events + Museum’, https://hawaii.edu/art/about-exhibitions-events/.

18 Since its 2002–2010 System Strategic Plan, UH has aspired to become a ʻHawaiian Place of Learning’, as demonstrated through the imperative to ʻrecognize our kuleana to honor the [I]ndigenous people and promote social justice for Native Hawaiians’. In 2017, UH Mānoa established the ʻNative Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office’ to help reach this ambitious institutional goal. For more information see University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, ‘What is a Native Hawaiian Place of Learning?’, https://manoa.hawaii.edu/nhpol/aloha-aina/.

19 Although the course developed and implemented by Piʻikea and his peers was not supported long-term by the Department, a version of it, ART 189: Introduction to Hawaiian Art, continues to be offered within the Community Colleges of the UH System. I [Drew] currently lead ART 189 at Kapiʻolani Community College where I also steward Koa Gallery. For the Spring 2023 semester, ART 189 is structured around ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters and the participating artists.

20 Eric Chang, ʻʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters Opening Protocols – Ipo Nihipali’, 22 January 2023.

21 ‘Hale Nauā III held its first informal gathering in 1973. Broadly concerned with advancing Native Hawaiian contemporary art and the causes of a developing art community, the group sourced its name from a private cultural organisation in existence during the late nineteenth century, Hale Nauā II. Founded by King David Kalākaua in 1886 and functioning until his death in 1891, Hale Nauā II worked to secure political leadership positions for Native Hawaiians while also promoting the revival and strengthening of Hawaiian culture in combination with the advancement of Western sciences, art, and literature. Although Hale Nauā II’s membership was limited to those of Native Hawaiian descent, it was open to all genders in contrast to many Western fraternal organisations active in the Kingdom’s capital at the time. As with Hale Nauā III, Hale Nauā II also sourced its name from an older order, which existed before 1778, during the reign of Kamehameha I. These Hale Nauā which functioned as councils had a narrower purpose and were focused on investigating the genealogical qualifications of those claiming relationships to ali‘i’. For further discussion see Broderick et al., Mai hoʻohuli i ka lima i luna, 10; Frank Karpiel, ‘Kalākaua’s Hale Naua, 1886-1891’, The Hawaiian Journal of History, vol. 33 (1999): 203–12.

22 A testament to the potential of the Department and its facilities to support Hawaiian artists, Piʻikea’s installation, an adaptation of an earlier work produced for Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022: Pacific Century – E Hoʻomau no Moananuiākea, was made on-site with longtime friend and master printer Charles Cohan, Professor of Art and Chair of Printmaking within the Department.

23 The source / of / my origins / lie beneath my feet, / the breath / in my chest / originated / in Pō / the destiny / of my race / is / plunged into / my gut / and / infesting / my veins / with a new nationalism, / old spiritualism, / and a need / to make wrong / right / now. ʻĪmaikalani Kalāhele, ‘Manifesto’, Kalahele, (Honolulu: Kalamakū Press), 2002, 63.

24 For many years Kahi and his wife Diana have operated K&D Signs and Graphics. Together, they design, produce, and install wall vinyl for arts institutions, organisations, and galleries on Oʻahu including TAG, UH Mānoa. Kahi’s inclusion in ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters was an opportunity to share his work as an artist in a space that he usually frequents as an installer.

25 Kahi Ching in conversation with authors, 26 May 2023.

26 Ibid.

27 Karen K. Kosasa, ‘Pedagogical Sights/Sites: Producing Colonialism and Practicing Art in the Pacific’, Art Journal 57, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 46–54.

28 Nanea Lum in conversation with Josh Tengan, 29 May 2023.

29 Ibid.

30 Below is a list of the ten public programs accompanying the exhibition, including each conversation’s title, date, location, and participants: ‘Mai Paʻa I ka Leo: Inception, Intention, Interpretation and Impact’ on 5 March at The Art Gallery, with curators Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick, Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu, and Josh Tengan, moderated by April A.H. Drexel; ‘Nānā I Nā Kumu: Investigations Alignments and Complexities’, on 7 March at The Art Gallery, with artists Maile Andrade, Kaili Chun, Maikaʻi Tubbs, and Kunane Wooton, moderated by April A.H. Drexel; ‘Aʻo Aku, Aʻo Mai: Critique as a Form of Empowerment’ on 21 March at The Art Gallery, with artists Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick, ʻĪmaikalani Kalāhele, Kapulani Landgraf, and Cory Kamehanaokalā Holt Taum, moderated by April A.H. Drexel; ‘Pili Paʻa Significance of Mentorship’, on 16 April at Gallery ʻIolani, with artists Meala Bishop, ʻĪmaikalani Kalāhele, and Maikaʻi Tubbs, moderated by Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick; ‘Kū I ka Pono: Multi-Dimensional Codes of Resistance’, on 22 April at Koa Gallery, with artists Sean K.L. Browne, Charlton Kūpaʻa Hee, Keith Tallett, and Cory Kamehanaokalā Holt Taum, moderated by Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick; ‘Kōkua Aku, Kōkua Mai: Value of Collaboration’, on 27 May at East-West Center Gallery, with artists Kahi Ching, Solomon Enos, Al Lagunero, Meleanna Aluli Meyer, Harinani Orme, and Carl F.K. Pao, moderated by Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick; ‘Pūlama Mauli Ola: Stealth Actions With Purpose’ on 1 July at East-West Center Gallery, with panellists Kimo Cashman, Karen Kosasa, Annie Reynolds, and Chuck Kawaiʻolu Souza, moderated by Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick; ‘Aia I Hea ka Pono?: Disrupt, Corrupt, Irrupt’, on 15 July at Hōʻikeākea Gallery, with artists Nālamakūikapō Ahsing, Noah Harders, Ipō and Kūnani Nihipali and Tiare Ribeaux, moderated by April A.H. Drexel; ‘Nā Kuleana O Nā Alakaʻi: Nuances of Re-Righting’, on 22 July at Hōikeākea Gallery, with artists Kaili Chun, Herman Piʻikea Clark, Kapulani Landgraf, and Abigail Romanchak, moderated by April A.H. Drexel; ‘ʻAʻole Pau: Possibilities and Potentialities’, on 12 August at Hōʻikeākea Gallery, with curators Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick, Josh Tengan, and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu, and UH Mānoa Director of Museum Studies Karen Kosasa, moderated by April A.H. Drexel.

31 ‘Petition to Support and Advocate for Kanaka ʻŌiwi Art Exhibitions, a Kanaka ʻŌiwi Visual Culture Faculty Position, and Kanaka ʻŌiwi Art Courses’, 22 January 2023. For more on institutional critique of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Art and Art History, see D. Māhealani Dudoit, ‘Carving a Hawaiian Aesthetic’, ʻŌiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal 1 (1998): 20–6; Kosasa, ‘Pedagogical Sights/Sites’, 46–54; and ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters, ed. Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick, Josh Tengan, Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu (Honolulu: Puʻuhonua Society, 2023).

32 In response to the petition, letters of support, and public testimony, the Art and Art History Department faculty unanimously voted in support of creating a tenure-track faculty position for Kanaka Visual Art. At the time of writing this essay, the position was on a priority list under consideration by Peter Arnade, Dean, College of Arts, Languages & Letters, UH Mānoa. That said, with multiple layers of additional approval necessary, there is no guarantee that the requested position will come to fruition.

33 The ‘About’ page of the Department’s website was rewritten by Jaimey Hamilton Faris, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory, in an attempt to address student concerns voiced through a letter and printed takeaway titled ‘Decolonize the University of Hawaiʻi Department of Art and Art History’, circulated in July 2020 by Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt, Thad Higa, and C.F.T. In September of that year Kaili Chun and I [Drew] were invited by Jaimey and her colleague in the Department, Mary Babcock, Associate Professor of Art and Fiber Area Chair, to speak with students about Mai ho‘ohuli i ka lima i luna (2020). Making the most of the opportunity, we coupled our discussion of the aforementioned exhibition to a critique of the Art and Art History Department and their relationship to Hawaiian artists and arts educators over the years. Following the session, Jaimey and Mary reached out to encourage us to develop and submit an exhibition proposal (what would become ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters) to the Department for consideration. Throughout the entire exhibition-making process, Jaimey was one of only a few Department members who actively offered support from within the institution.

34 When asked if select gallery walls could be painted by our installation team, with the understanding that we would cover the associated costs of all materials and labour to return the walls to white during deinstallation, Maika Pollack (then Director of The Art Gallery and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History) responded by saying that the gallery walls were ‘too valuable for us to paint any color other than [the gallery] white’. This is just one of many interactions with representatives of the Department that demonstrated an unwillingness to adjust TAG’s policies and procedures to accommodate our community based approaches to art and exhibition-making. Email correspondence between the curators and Maika Pollack, 28 December 2022.

35 A personal note on solidarities: In January 2023, the week after the exhibition opened at UH Mānoa, I [Josh] had a chance to deliver a paper on ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters for the Orion Lecture Series in Fine Arts at the University of Victoria as part of Wayfinders, the ones we breathe with, a series of exhibitions, residencies and events curated by Toby Lawrence and Open Space in Victoria, British Columbia. In June 2023, I [Drew] had the opportunity to participate in Estuaries: An International Indigenous Art Criticism Residency, which brought together—online and in Lenapehoking—an intergenerational group of artists, curators, writers, researchers, educators, and administrators. The residency was led by Léuli Eshrāghi (Sāmoa) and Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation) and organised collaboratively by Momus and Forge Project. Together, Wayfinders and Estuaries remind us of the importance of situating Kānaka efforts within international Indigenous networks to establish strategic alliances between movements, peoples, and places. We are profoundly grateful for the space and time both residencies afforded us to reflect on and write about ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters from a critical distance within safe and supportive learning environments.