Images in order of appearance: Lilinoe, Mamane, Papahanaumoku & Wākea, Kahoupōkane, Moʻoinānea, Pele, Hinahina, Waiʻau, Poliahu

Artist Statement

The 12 mixed media illustrations for the Mauna Kea syllabus were designed to bring a few of the akua, plants, and birds of Mauna Kea to life within a 21st century context. They are an invitation to revisit the moʻolelo of our akua and the Mauna as we imagine Kanaka Maoli futures.

Interview on the art for the syllabus with Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada and Noʻu Revilla

Artist Biography

Joy Lehuanani Enomoto is a Kanaka Maoli, African American, Japanese, Caddo Indian, Punjabi, and Scottish visual artist, archivist, and social justice activist. Her work engages with climate justice mapping, extractive colonialism, saltwater conversations that occur within the space of the diaspora, the policing of black and brown bodies, the Black Pacific, demilitarization, and other issues currently affecting the peoples of Oceania. Her artwork and scholarship have been featured in Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai'i (Duke University Press, 2019); the Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Politics (Routledge 2018); Na Wahine Koa: Hawaiian Women for Sovereignty and Demilitarization (University of Hawai'i Press 2018); Finding Meaning: Kaona and Contemporary Hawaiian Literature (University of Arizona Press, 2016); Absolute Humidity (Hardworking Goodlooking, 2018); Amerasia Journal; Bamboo Ridge: Journal of Hawai'i Literature and Arts; Slate Magazine; and Hawai'i Review.

In 2016, Joy worked as a set designer for the play Her Bodies of Stories by Lyz Soto, and in 2018 she worked on various projects with the regional youth organization Youngsolwara, co-curating the exhibition Mai Em(ocean) in Suva, Fiji, with Papua New Guinean artist Jeffry Feeger, employing art as a tool to support West Papua's decolonization, and participating in artist talks during the Melanesian Arts Festival in Honiara, Solomon Islands. Also in 2018, as part of her master's portfolio, Joy worked with spoken-word artist and climate-justice activist Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and community photographers in Mājro, Marshall Islands, to facilitate the exhibition Aelõñ in Aibojooj (Beautiful Small Things).

Artist Biography

Kalilinoe Detwiler is a kanaka artist and scholar who animates Hawaiian moʻolelo while pursuing an English MA at the University of Hawaiʻi. Her projects focus on pono production practices and she is invested in exploring the representation of traditional knowledge in the present.