Puʻuhonua Society celebrates its second group of Hoʻākea Source recipients, awarding $92,000 directly to 12 artists, art collectives and artistic collaborators working on Oʻahu.
Puʻuhonua Society’s granting program, Hoʻākea Source, in partnership with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program and with additional support from the Laila Twigg-Smith Art Fund of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, announces the second group of awardees receiving funds from $4,000 to $10,000. Grantees will have one year to bring to life a range of projects centered around ʻāina (that which feeds), pilina (relationality), and huli (change).
Projects celebrate the diverse practices of artists of Hawaiʻi and take many forms, including experimental publications; archiving projects centered on Hawaiian cultural practices, local culture, and māhū joy; a multimedia performance; a mobile artist-in-residence program; a contemporary dance film; community-based projects rooted in cultural practice; an artist collective; a service learning trip; a thematic group exhibition; and an archival film screening.
A trio of review panelists convened to discuss applications and select this year’s awardees from 31 total applicants. Brief bios and remarks from the panelists can be found below.
Mina Elison is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi curator who was born and raised in Kailua on the island of O‘ahu. With generational ties to South Kona on Hawai‘i, Mina currently serves as Curator at the Donkey Mill Art Center in Kona, Hawai‘i, where she curates exhibitions and programming featuring local and international artists working in diverse media from kapa to film. She sees the gallery as a classroom, laboratory, and gathering space which inspires exploration, reflection, and healing; art can be a catalyst for meaningful and challenging dialogue. Mina aims to develop collaborative exhibitions which amplify stories and perspectives of those whose voices have been marginalized, suppressed and misrepresented.
“A warm mahalo to The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Regranting Program and the Laila Twigg-Smith Art Fund of the Hawai’i Community Foundation for their support of this incredible program… As threats to our ability to express ourselves freely mount, support from these partnerships are more than symbolic acts of solidarity, but rather a vitally important catalyzing tool enabling artists to use their stories and perspectives to help us all re-envision our worlds and build more pono and equitable futures.”
Kristan Kennedy is a Portland-based artist, curator, and educator. Kennedy is the Artistic Director and Curator of Visual Art at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). For the last decade, Kennedy has focused on commissioning new work by international emerging artists in the form of large-scale, site-specific installations and solo projects that exist at the borders of genres. Kennedy takes an expansive view of visual art and also organizes music, performance art, publications, social engagement and new media projects as part of PICA’s year-round programming and for the organization’s annual Time-Based Art Festival. Kennedy serves on the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts and teaches Contemporary Art and Critical Thinking at the Pacific Northwest College of Art as part of their MFA in Visual Studies department.
“…I was struck by the deep generosity and meaningful exchange that occurred when considering each of the applicants’ work. I am grateful to everyone at Puʻuhonua Society, to my fellow panelists, and to the artists for their extraordinarily thoughtful process which values community over competition and a deep connectedness to place.”
Marques Hanalei Marzan is a Hawaiian and Oceanic fibers culture bearer and contemporary visual artist born and raised in Kāne‘ohe, Hawaiʻi. Acknowledged as a skilled practitioner within his community, Hanalei serves as mentor and advocate for perpetuating Hawaiian fiber techniques and instilling indigenous values in his students. Hanalei is the current Pu’uhonua Society Board President and as the Cultural Advisor at Bishop Museum in Honolulu, he promotes the integration of indigenous mindsets and practices and recognizes the need to legitimize indigenous voices within the Museum field.
“I am overjoyed knowing that so many people are doing amazing things for Hawai‘i and our collective history and that Ho‘ākea Source has the ability to support these efforts in our community.”
Below is a list of the proposals selected for funding in 2025, including working titles, artist names, and project descriptions. These grantees will have the opportunity to bring their artistic endeavors and visions to life over the next year, presenting their finished projects in venues and communities of their choice. Hoʻākea Source looks forward to seeing their projects come to fruition and making a positive impact on the local arts ecosystem in Hawaiʻi and beyond. For more information about Hoʻākea Source and its initiatives, visit www.hoakeasource.org.
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TUTUVI TUTUVI TUTUVI
Colleen Kimura
TUTUVI TUTUVI TUTUVI celebrates the vision, spirit and legacy of Colleen Kimura’s brand Tutuvi, and her surrounding arts community. The project consists of a theatrical fashion show that reimagines Tutuvi’s material archive from 1980 to the present, and an experimental short film and publication, which take the fashion show as an entry point for the narratives about place and people that the brand embodies. The project as a whole has been produced by a multigenerational team of creatives who built a collaborative vision for the show in order to present garments from Tutuvi’s past, present, and future – including set design, sound design, and projection. The fashion show took place in August 2024, and the team is now working on the production and presentation of the film and book, set to launch in summer 2025.
RESIDENT ARTIST VEHICLE 4000 (RAV4000)
Cody Anderson
RESIDENT ARTIST VEHICLE 4000 (RAV4000) is a 2002 Toyota Rav4 turned multipurpose mobile art toolkit designed and created by 5 artists for ‘āina based creative research projects. The mobile studio supports place-based and site-specific artist projects which respond to, collaborate with, and require access to the land. Participating artists: Cody Anderson, Kainoa Gruspe, Nanea Lum, Amber Khan, and Alec Singer will plan projects then design and fabricate the necessary (or unnecessary but awesome) vehicle modifications to complete their work and offer community workshops and presentations. The vehicle will then be used to complete each artist’s project during a 2-month residency period in which they also offer community events relating to their various skill sets and practices. RAV4000’s formula can then be repeated with more artist contributions in the future, an ever-evolving sculpture, toolkit, resource, and residency by Hawai‘i artists, for Hawai‘i artists.
Kealaʻula
Nani Welch Keliʻihoʻomalu
Kealaʻula is a project that synthesizes fine-art and ethnography together using photography, film, and sound media to enshrine the living memories of lower Puna within a single, collaborative, creative body of work. Kealaʻula aims to identify and preserve cultural data from the community members and families of lower Puna that remain deeply interwoven and profoundly connected to the ever changing landscape.
Nā Leo o Kapa
Avalon Paradea
For thousands of years, kapa was the cherished fabric of Hawaiʻi. Crafted from the inner fibers of the wauke tree, it has long been used for purposes such as attire, bedding, protecting ʻiwi, and in ceremony. During the Hawaiian Renaissance, kapa was revived through the passionate research and experimentation of ʻŌiwi practitioners, including Puanani Van Dorpe, Malia Solomon, and Marie McDonald. Today, the kapa community continues to expand across the pae ʻāina. Nā Leo o Kapa explores the stories of cherished kapa makers and the pilina they share with self, ʻāina, and community. Through a combination of oral history and visual art, their voices will be celebrated and memorialized into an illustrated zine for folks of all ages to enjoy.
OUR JOY iS SACRED
Lani Punani
OUR JOY iS SACRED aims to celebrate and explore their relationships with their elder MVPFAFF+ LGBTQIA+ — all the alphabets — and Hawaiʻi’s Māhū queer youth, outside of viewing them as more than just entertainment; not just how they can entertain us, whilst still being thoroughly entertained. They will explore themes of grief, forgottenness, care, empathy, sexuality, protecting joy, spirituality, archives, community, and aloha ‘āina. Collectively, OUR JOY iS SACRED archives the present and chronicles the future, celebrates and protects sacred joy, and honors the interconnectedness of the human-in-community experiences of being Māhū and queer in Hawai‘i and its surroundings — the greater Moana Nui, the Philippines, and the world.
I OLA KANALOA
Davianna McGregor & Craig Neff
I OLA KANALOA (2026) is a place-responsive project organized by the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana (PKO), a grassroots organization established in 1976 to protect the sacred island of Kahoʻolawe. Over the past half century PKO has led community efforts to remediate, revitalize, and recover the island’s abundant futures. I OLA KANALOA continues this work through the form of a huakaʻi or service learning trip, thematic group exhibition, archival film screening, and public program series to mark the 50 year anniversary of PKO’s founding. This project is led by PKO core members Craig Neff (artist/activist) and Davianna Pōmaikaʻi McGregor (historian/educator).
The Renkon Project
Noe Tanigawa
In Japanese culture, the Renkon or lotus root symbolizes the ability to see clearly into the future. For this multi-day, multi-venue, multimedia project, the Renkon is also being used to look back 80 years ago at the propaganda, misinformation and racism used by the United States to justify the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Like a lotus flower arising from the mud, it is their hope that illuminated minds and strengthened connectedness between ourselves and all living beings will move us towards a clearer understanding of what we need to do together to prevent future annihilation.
Queen Kapiʻolani Canoe Project
Zak Shimose
The Queen Kapiʻolani Canoe Project (QKCP) is a collaboration that weaves the artistry of a Hawaiian cultural practice and the art filmmaking. QKCP will culminate with an exhibition of a rough-carved Koa wa’a, a participatory exhibition, where the public will finish-carve the wa’a, thereby contributing their mana to the wa’a. The exhibit will also feature a short documentary on the process of making a Ko’i, the canoe carvers’ main tool. This wa’a is a contemporary echo of the original that is now held in storage at the Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse in the United Kingdom. The original wa’a was a gift from King Kalakāua and Queen Kapiʻolani to England in 1891, just two years prior to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. QKCP celebrates and honors the moʻokū’auhau of this waʻa, focusing on the perpetuation of a cultural practice and highlighting the histories of the Hawaiian Monarchy.
Manini Collective
Johnny Macas-Freire
Manini Collective is a Hawai‘i-based initiative reimagining the possibilities of painting through collective practice, including artists Eduardo Joaquin, Lauren Hana Chai, Grace Milk, Kaila Foltz, Cyan Garma, and Johnny Macas-Freire. Challenging the traditionally solitary nature of painting, Manini Collective explores new approaches to technique, material, and narrative through sustained dialogue, critique, and collaboration.
E Ola Keoneʻōʻio
Gigi Axelrode
E Ola Keoneʻōʻio (working title) is a short dance film shot on Maui (Gigi’s ʻohana one hānau) that blends contemporary dance with archival and testimonial footage documenting community opposition to desecration and restricted beach access in and near Keoneʻōʻio—a bay in the ahupuaʻa of Kalihi, within the moku of Honuaʻula, on the island of Maui. This film works to uncover the real history and moʻolelo of this wahi (it is commonly referred to as La Perouse after a French explorer), Gigi’s own ancestral connection to it, and how the waters of Keoneʻōʻio remember all that has come before us and will continue to remember after we are gone.
Babaeng Babae Na
Hercules Goss-Kuehn
Babaeng Babae Na is a multi-disciplinary exploration of the artist’s gender transition through their PasifiQueer lens. The journey will weave activations of site-specific performance art, audio/visual media, and facilitating community dialogues. The work affirms the sacredness of the third-gender and trans+ experiences and counters vitriolic narratives of gender fluidity.
Hoʻomana Hale
Wahinekoa
Hoʻomana Hale is a workshop combining practical life skills and traditional Hawaiian practices aimed at healing generational trauma in native Hawaiian women. While all are welcome to this offering, they prioritize keeping kānaka in Hawaiʻi through collective healing of deep kaumaha o ka lāhui. This offering will include 3 sessions: power tools and pule kahiko, composting and pest management, as well as pale (spiritual and physical self defense).