We asked Native Hawaiian luminaries about the artworks shifting Kānaka Maoli art in the 21st century.
84 _ SENSE OF [UN]PLACE
By focusing its lens on the islands’ liminal spaces, a recently formed photography collective renders the familiar into the foreign — and back again.
Emi ihola ma lalo o ko ka Pelekania ka waiwai o ka ‘Ōlelo Kanaka ma kekahi ‘aha ho‘okolokolo.
104 _ KŪKANILOKO & NOGUCHI
The Japanese American artist envisioned revitalizing one of Hawai‘i’s most sacred sites in a dream project that was never realized.
SPECIAL SECTION: NYC
118 _ SURFING
The Austins, the Maui brothers behind Kings Glassing, brings Hawai‘i’s high surfboard standards to the East Coast.
126 GUIDE
Palestinian-Filipina chef Nadia Agsen finds inspiration in artisanal shops and Middle Eastern bites.
134 _ MEDIA
Since moving from Kaimukī, O‘ahu, writer and editor Naz Kawakami finally settles in.
142 _ FARE
For content creators Anna Archibald and Kevin Serai, food isn’t just a business. It’s a way to remain connected to their island roots.
152 _ WEST KAUA‘I
Hanapēpē, Waimea, & Kōke‘e
166 _ FORAGING
Yuda Abitbol
Puka Prints 184 _
Little Plumeria Farms
ART & DESIGN
CULTURE
FARE
STYLE
POLITICS
SOCIETY SUSTAINABILITY
NEW SUN RISES IN HAWAI’I
A Hawai‘i-inspired production featuring a cast of acrobats, talented musicians and singers, and profound hula dancers. Now performing at the OUTRIGGER eater in Waikīkī.
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ON THE COVERS
Reflecting the dynamism of stories in every edition, our new issues are released with multi-cover runs to express the kaleidoscopic and shifting landscape of the islands. This year’s 2025 run also showcases a crystal shine to commemorate 15 years of Flux Hawaii. L to R: 1. Freediver and jeweler Nico Jager; 2. Sacred pōhaku at Kūkaniloko, O‘ahu; 3. A refracted Honolulu street scene at night; 4. The late artist Bernice Akamine (1949–2024).
Images, L to R, by:
2.
3.
4. Dino
1. Shiloh Perkins
Michelle Mishina
Taylor Niimoto
Morrow
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MIA ANZALONE is a hapa writer from Kailua, O‘ahu. A 2024 college graduate, she recently returned home to the windward side after studying sociology and art history in Los Angeles and Rome. She has previously penned articles for HAWAI‘I Magazine and Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and held multiple editorial roles for her student-run college newspaper, The Occidental, including editor in chief. Anzalone’s profile on the local illustrator Shar Tuiasoa, on page 44, marks her first contribution to Flux Hawaii. The artist, born and raised minutes from Anzalone’s family home, and her work cement a Pasifika presence in a small neighborhood that increasingly sees heightened numbers of outsiders. While reporting, the two of them reminisced of childhoods spent in Kailua and the pesky limu at Castles Beach. “Talking with Shar felt like talking to a lifelong friend,” Anzalone says. “I was moonstruck by both her gratitude and grounded critique of the progress of representation in the art world, and what it means for the future of local talent.”
PERRY ARRASMITH has been navigating the historical complexities of Hawai‘i since his early childhood days on Center Street in Kaimukī. Born in southern Illinois and raised on O‘ahu, where he graduated from ‘Aiea High School, Arrasmith earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Harvard University before earning a Master of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Arrasmith wrote about the renowned Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s unrealized vision for Kūkaniloko on page 104. Through a happenstance conversation at a funeral in Mililani, Arrasmith learned of the long-forgotten plans that Noguchi had for one of the most sacred sites in Native Hawaiian cosmology. “It was a story haunted with historical contradictions, one that starts and ends at a peripheral site of centrality that defies time,” Arrasmith says. “Sandwiched between the Wai‘anae and Ko‘olau mountains, Kūkaniloko was there in the time of Ma‘ilikūkahi and sits off a road outside modern Wahiawā amidst California grass.” Historical facts were carefully pieced together with the help of interviews, digitized reports, first-hand accounts, old newspaper clippings, and other documents. The result is a reconstruction of Noguchi's forgotten vision in his first piece for Flux Hawaii.
Born and raised in Makakilo, Hawai‘i, SHILOH PERKINS uses his camera as a tool to engage in his culture. In 2024, he released Hawai‘i, a photo zine shot on film across several Hawaiian Islands. The project was supported by Single Double and Hawai‘i Theatre through the Single Double community residency space in Chinatown, O‘ahu, which hosted Perkins in 2023 and Tropic Editions in 2023–2024. Perkins photographed jeweler Nico Jager, on page 36, in his first story for Flux Hawaii; one of his portraits is also on Cover 1 of this issue. “Nico has been a longtime friend of mine and has always displayed a rigorous approach to research and search for knowledge, down to the smallest details. Photographing the pieces was a testament to that,” he says.
BIANCA WAGNER was born in Santa Barbara, California, and raised on Kaua‘i from the age of eight. Time and time again, she has felt drawn back to the island she calls home. Raised by two avid surfers whose love for the ocean permeated her childhood, and deeply immersed in Kaua‘i’s tight-knit community, her love of storytelling has called her to write about the island that raised her. After leaving home to earn a bachelor’s degree in English from UC Berkeley, Wagner spent several years exploring California but found she couldn’t stay away from Hawai‘i. She returned to Kaua‘i in 2020, launching her career as a professional writer, crafting marketing materials for local businesses. Today, she works as a copywriter from her home in Lāwa‘i, balancing her professional work with passion-driven creative writing projects and surfing as often as she can. Writing about Kaua‘i’s west side, her first piece for Flux Hawaii, on page 152, brings Wagner great joy. Home to countless memories, people, and places that are inseparable from her experience of life on Kaua‘i, she hopes to represent the heart of the west side honestly and shine light on a community that means so much to her.
“ Doing something tactile is really helpful for me to quiet
FLUX PHILES my mind. ” — Tamiko Claire
ʻIlima Is a Gift
WITH ITS PAPER-THIN PETALS AND BRIEF BLOOMS, NATIVE ‘ILIMA TELLS A STORY OF PRECARITY AND RESILIENCE.
TEXT BY
IMAGES BY _ ANNA HARMON
_ JOHN HOOK AND SHANOALEIGH MARSON
ʻIlima flowers are ephemeral. As thin as tissue and slightly tacky to the touch, the golden blossoms open with the arrival of the sun on their delicate skin. As night descends, they close upon themselves. The spent flowers dry on the branch or fall from the calyx, little balls of sunshine that come to rest upon the ground. Depending on who is gathering pua for lei, they may be harvested in the evening as buds or in the morning as soon as they unfurl. Once picked, you have a day, two at most, to string and give a lei. Looked at from different perspectives, ʻilima is at either a precarious point or it is a sign of perseverance. The seed of this story was the former, based on my perception of lei ʻilima as few and far between. Having bought a few ʻilima starters from a booth at the KCC farmers market, I was daunted by the task of harvesting enough flowers to string a lei. (Depending on the flower and the day, a typical single-string ʻilima lei can take from 500 to nearly 1,000 flowers.) I also realized I had never noticed ʻilima growing in the Hawaiʻi landscape, whether cultivated or wild. Was I just not paying attention? Or was that golden ‘ilima fading from view?
I soon learned that when ʻilima is on the mind, it manifests. To find the plant in mesic forest or rocky soil along the coast, it is easiest to look for pops of gold and yellow. In the mountains, it appears as wiry bushes with small deep-green leaves and golden-orange blooms; by the sea, it crawls along the ground, silvery green and butter yellow. It grows from Nihoa, where its flower buds are eaten by the critically endangered Nihoa finch, to Hawai‘i Island’s South Point and throughout the Pacific. How it expresses itself varies between elevation and islands. ʻIlima seeds may be little khaki wedges or dark black slivers with tiny
Looked at from different perspectives, ʻilima is at either a precarious point or it is a sign of perseverance.
points like horns. While the leaves, stems, amount of flowers, and canopy can be quite different, the most consistent trait is the pua. Despite its diversity, scientists at University of Hawaiʻi have confirmed that ʻilima, or sida fallax, is indeed a single species.
Among the landscape is the wao ʻilima, also known as ʻāpaʻa, which is dry, arid land on the mountainside below wao kanaka, the inland area where humans live and grow food. An article in an August 1885 issue of The Daily Bulletin, titled “Viewing the Ranches,” recounts a visit to the James Campbell-owned Honouliuli Ranch: “The first hour’s riding is over an immense plain covered with a heavy growth of ilima and other small leafy plants. The ‘ilima is pronounced by graziers an excellent fattening plant for cattle. It grows here in endless quantity.” ʻIlima from up to 6,500 feet in elevation all the way to the shoreline, flourishing still on islets such as Kapapa off Kāneʻohe Bay and other less trafficked isles such as Baker Island.
From a distance, the flowers of invasive lantana, Chinese wedelia, or Golden crownbeard, can have the same golden effect as ʻilima. The native plant has also been outcompeted by invasive grasses. But when the Waikoloa Dry Forest Initiative on Hawaiʻi Island started to remove such grasses, ʻilima seeds began to sprout. Over time, ʻilima filled in the areas between the trees and shrubs the organization planted. Each year it collects millions of ʻilima seeds, which have been used in post-fire restoration efforts. “We often refer to ʻilima as a champion species,
a habitat builder, and a partner in forest restoration,” writes Jen Lawson.
To this day, ʻilima grows in places like the Waiʻanae Mountains and Waialeʻe on O’ahuʻs north shore. Just as the plant can be spotted if you look enough, finding an ʻilima lei maker seems to be a matter of knowing whom to ask, hoping for someone to come along, or taking up the task yourself. Discussing the mele “Lei ʻIlima” by Charles E. King, kumu hula and musician Manu Boyd and his kumu Robert Cazimero both recall how fortunate they’ve been to be graced by ʻilima lei “thanks to Auntie Honey,” says Boyd, referring to the late generational lei ‘ilima maker Emelia Lam Ho Ka‘īlio, “and before that Auntie Verna,” Cazimero says.
Pua Hana in Kaimukī received its lei ʻilima from Dorothy “Dot” Nishida, who began making lei in 1967, according to her son Glenn Nishida. Now 91 years old, she averages about four strands a week. Dot got her first plant from a friend of her husband in Salt Lake and taught herself to make the lei. In 2015, a gardening error killed the 15 thriving plants she had in her yard in Kāneʻohe, which put a stop to her lei making. Then, in 2021, her grandson found a plant at City Mill, which inspired the family to pick up the craft again. These days, Dot goes to Glenn’s home about three times a week to harvest flowers from the four plants that grow in his Kāneʻohe yard and then make lei; other times Glenn’s wife, Joan Maeshiro, brings flowers to Dot at home, where she also has two flowering plants. They pick buds before the sun arrives, around 6:30 a.m., remove the calyxes, and spread them on a 3-inch foam pad.
‘ILIMA IS MORE THAN ITS PINT-SIZED BEAUTY. HAWAIIAN FISHERS SOMETIMES PREPARE BAIT FROM OCTOPUS FLESH AND THE JUICE FROM THE ‘ILIMA BLOSSOM. HOWEVER, AN EXACT NUMBER OF FLOWERS IS ALWAYS USED, AS FISHERS BELIEVE USING AN ODD NUMBER RENDERS THE BAIT POWERLESS. OPPOSITE, IMAGE BY SHANOALEIGH MARSON.
Once they bloom, which takes about an hour, Dot arranges them in rows and strings 12 at a time onto an orange thread using a needle sourced from Japan, a task she repeats 50 to 65 times. In total, it takes around 4 to 6 hours to complete a lei.
At Picket Fence Florist in Kailua is another ʻilima lei maker, Howard Souza, who was born and raised in Kailua. While he has been working as a floral designer for the shop’s owner, Sadie Akamine, for 37 years, only for the last few has he been making ʻilima lei. He began making lei because he likes growing the plant, which is akin to the hybrid hibiscus he was already cultivating in his yard. He harvests the flowers with his wife when the sun is shining on them, around 9:30 a.m., though he knows of a couple in ʻEwa Beach who harvests closer to 7 a.m., when the flowers open there. It takes them about two hours to collect, and then anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to string the lei. He recalls meeting a worker at Home Depot who said his inlaws grew and made ‘ilima lei in Kaimukī — they were known as the ‘ilima couple, and the flower is even on their headstone. According to Howard, who is 75 years old, it is elderly people who make ʻilima lei, as they have the time and patience.
ʻIlima has long graced the Hawaiian Islands, but gone are the days when ʻilima was more prominent than orchid, plumeria, pua kenikeni lei — when it was one of the most abundant lei flowers of all. The flower has been used in lāʻau lapaʻau in the third trimester to lubricate the birth canal and for digestion for infants. The branches were used precontact for hale frames, floor
coverings, loʻi fencing, hula hālau altars, and basket making. It may be the only flower Hawaiians cultivated for lei making pre-contact. In an oral history, kumu hula ‘Iwalani Tseu, who was born in 1950, calls her hometown Honouliuli, “a town noted for its ‘ilima flower farms.”
The lei appears in numerous moʻolelo. In one, the journeying goddess Hiʻiaka saw people adorned in ʻilima lei jumping into the sea at Makua. In another, Kahikilani, who traveled from Kauaʻi to try his hand surfing the waves of Paumalu, fell in love with Kaiulani, who made him lei of lehua — until the day he accepted a lei ʻilima from another woman. For his betrayal, she turned him to stone.
Another name given to lei ʻilima is lei ʻāpiki, because it was believed to attract mischievous spirits. It has been considered unlucky and lucky. Lei ʻilima were prominent among royalty, which may be because of its resemblance of a mamo feather lei. Combined with maile lei, stacks of ʻilima are flex, a symbol of abundance and affection and connection.
Vicky Holt Takamine, kumu hula of Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima and founder and executive director of PAʻI Foundation, has a large ʻilima bush in her backyard in ʻAiea. One recent morning, her aunty, who has long made lei ʻilima, collected seeds from it to take home. Takamine’s late mother would string a lei if the flowers were set before her even into her 90s. Not long ago, Takamine moved
aside some failed plant starters only to find a keiki ʻilima flourishing on the ground. She confesses she’s not the best ʻilima lei maker, so she’s found her own approach — to wili clusters of ʻilima buds into lei, which then open throughout the day.
Takamine has had a long relationship with ʻilima, at least since her kumu hula Maiki Aiu Lake named her hālau class for ʻilima in 1975. For ʻūniki, the students were to use ʻilima, which meant they had to figure out how to forage and grow it. They found the flower at Makapuʻu, Kalaeloa (Barber’s Point), Awāwāmalu (Sandy’s). She remembers gathering from bunches of prostrate ʻilima kahakai in yellow light of the Awāwāmalu parking lot at night. Now, only grass grows there.
Takamine started Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima in 1977, the hālau’s name chosen by Aunty Maiki at Takamine’s request — pua ʻilima for her graduating class, aliʻi for her royal lineage. Takamine has carried the ʻilima name with her to PAʻI Foundation — which is both the acronym for her ʻohana’s hālau and the Hawaiian word for slap, or sudden impact. Takamine was also pivotal in the development of the artists lofts in Kakaʻako, which is named Ola Ka ʻIlima Artspace Lofts, meaning “where ʻilima thrives,” which she says anchors it on Oʻahu and is meant to manifest creativity. ʻIlima is not only a kinolau for Laka, the goddess of hula, she explains, but also for the god Kāne, embodying the latter’s traits of creativity, fresh water,
sunlight. She is happy to still see ʻilima growing in the shared garden plots in the building’s courtyard.
In 1997, Takamine also firmly opposed a bill introduced by the state legislature to restrict gathering rights on developed and undeveloped lands and requiring Native Hawaiians to apply for permits to gather materials. “We have to go where it’s growing and growing profusely to get kinolau to represent,” she says. “Natural resources are vital, and we need access to the beach where [ʻilima] grow, ferns in the mountains, to teach hālau how to do these things,” Takamine says. It is also important, she adds, for anyone in the islands who wants to gather enough flowers to make a lei.
When I asked Takamine what she wishes for ʻilima, she said it is to see it growing freely in abundant bunches rather than just as single bushes in someone’s yard. Following Takamine’s memories, I set out to find ʻilima at Makapuʻu with my 3-yearold. We foundered on the coastal path and tucked back into the car, but then I thought to take a quick swing by Awāwāmalu. On the less-trafficked end of the parking lot, I found a couple ‘ilima flowers greeting the sun between naupaka leaves. Looking further, I saw a few more plants crawling along the sand. I squeezed a few blossoms from their calyxes and handed them to my daughter, who popped them in her mouth and said they tasted like foam. Then we headed back to our potted ‘ilima flowering at home. a
On a Saturday morning in October, Tamiko Claire is throwing pots in her Kaimukī studio. The weekend light filters through the slatted windows, illuminating a slate-colored bowl as it takes shape on her potter’s wheel. With each slight press of her fingertips, the clay grows taller and wider, expanding under the ceramicist’s touch. Once completed, the vessel will fit in nicely with the inventory that surrounds her — freeform vases, small platters, earth-tone cups inlaid with curvy hand-painted flowers — reflecting a blend of influences from different chapters of her life in Honolulu, Japan, and New York City.
“I’m always thinking about timing,” Claire, 34, says of the demands of ceramics, an art form that requires daily attention. One day she throws pots, and the next, once they’ve dried to a leathery hardness, she trims them, adds mug handles, or embellishes their surfaces with designs. Next comes bisque firing, a low-temperature blaze that desiccates the clay and solidifies its final form. Afterward, she either applies a glaze or leaves them unglazed for a more raw, natural look. Finally the pots are vitrified with a second firing, spending a day in a kiln hotter
A Quiet Practice
INSPIRED BY JAPANESE AND SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN, THE HONOLULU CERAMICIST
TAMIKO CLAIRE CREATES SMALL-BATCH HOME GOODS WITH CLEAN LINES AND EARTHY ROOTS.
than 2,000 degrees. Nearly 20 years into her ceramics practice, Claire describes the style of the finished pieces that eventually emerge as “clean lines with earthy roots.”
Claire, who grew up in Nu‘uanu, O‘ahu, was first introduced to ceramics as a kid through handbuilding, an ancient pottery-making technique using only one’s hands and simple tools, then again as a high schooler at ‘Iolani where she learned to throw on a wheel. At 18 years old, she was offered a modeling job in Japan which took her to Tokyo for the next six years, and during that time, pottery became even more meaningful as an antidote to an occasionally dispiriting fashion industry. On trips to Kyoto to see her grandmother, Claire further developed her interest in the craft with visits to Bizen, a coastal city renowned for its rustic unglazed ceramics, and Shigaraki, a country town famous for its impressive noborigama, huge multitiered kilns situated on a slope allowing ash to rise and produce an array of natural glazing effects.
Following her full-time modeling career in Japan, Claire needed a reset before settling back into Hawai‘i, so in 2017 she moved to New York City where
CLAIRE’S MULTI-DAY PROCESS ALWAYS BEGINS AT HER WHEEL, BUT THE DRYING AND TRIMMING PROCESS ARE MORE FLUID, SUBJECT TO NATURAL FACTORS LIKE THE WEATHER.
TEXT AND IMAGES BY _ VIOLA GASKELL
CLAIRE DEVELOPED HER CRAFT WITH VISITS TO BIZEN, A JAPANESE COASTAL CITY RENOWNED FOR ITS RUSTIC UNGLAZED CERAMICS, AND SHIGARAKI, A COUNTRY TOWN FAMOUS FOR ITS ANCIENT CERAMIC KILNS.
she joined a ceramics studio, Choplet, that offered 24-hour access. “I would go in early in the morning and just have it to myself, and really just play,” she says.
While she admired the glassy multihued ceramics she was exposed to early on in Honolulu, she felt there was room for simplicity and natural colors. Hawai‘i’s du jour color palette tends towards blues and browns that broke and pooled on pots, she observed, creating uneven, abstract color variations. Claire countermeasures this with a preference for opaque pastels and light earth tones in a style more
decidedly Rothko than de Kooning. “I wanted to tie in Japanese aesthetics,” she says, “but also a bit of the Scandinavian style that I was exposed to in New York, while using colors of and textures inspired by Hawaiʻi.” The sandy-hued serveware she’s been making lately embodies this style: each plate, bowl, and cup have slight variations with a small pop of pastel or a bit of natural speckling in the clay, but they go together seamlessly as a set.
In New York City, she got a job at NeueHouse, a creative coworking space where she was exposed to the maker’s
DIY mentality. “All of these people had their own businesses out of this shared work space,” she says. “It was inspiring.” When she moved back to Oʻahu two years later, she decided to put herself out there as a ceramicist. She began slowly, first by launching a website of her wares, then creating an Instagram account dedicated to her work. After making her public debut at Sunshine People Market, a seasonal fair of independent sellers in Kakaʻako, Claire sold at boutiques like At Dawn and Milo, before supplying Niu Valley’s Surf Camp with ceramic tableware. Just before
Covid-19 reached the U.S., the apparel brand Madewell invited her to sell her products through their new online marketplace. With everyone stuck at home, and suddenly enamored with home goods, demand struck. “It was boot camp for producing higher quantities of one specific style,” Claire says. “It gave me a taste of what production pottery looks like.”
Wheel-throwing, however, is not a process that lends itself to pressure. With production-scale pottery, Claire says she gets to a point of muscle memory and she puts on some jazz house or an old Bob Marley album and just flows. When she throws, she is conscientious of her mood, and the music is intentional. “I
like to incorporate, or be influenced by, things that remind me of love,” Claire says. “That’s what I really hope to channel into what I’m making.”
Recently, Claire moved from her home studio in Pālolo Valley to a commercial space in Kaimukī that smells of ‘olena and white ginger flowers (she shares the unit with Indigenous Soaps, another woman-owned business). She’s also been collaborating with chef Yuda Abitbol, who teaches foraging under the social media moniker @followthewai; Abitbol gathered so-called “wild clay” in Mānoa and Pālolo for Claire to craft a set of custom plates for his private dinners. Since, Claire is still
NEARLY 20 YEARS INTO HER CERAMICS JOURNEY, CLAIRE IS INSPIRED “BY THINGS THAT REMIND ME OF LOVE.”
experimenting with the clay, wedging different amounts of material in with her regular stoneware and painting them with slip, a mixture of water and the wild clay, to see how it reacts to the firing process. Despite the need to fill orders as her small business grows, Claire wants her process to stay “unforced,” as she puts it. If she’s having an off day on the wheel, she’ll hand-build or find something else to do. Because to center a lump of clay on the wheel, one also has to center oneself. “You have to be present,” she says. “We have so many things to think about all the time, it’s hard to allow ourselves to stop. Doing something tactile is really helpful for me to quiet my mind.” A
Stüssy | Tory Burch | Yumi Kim | Rock-A-Hula | Doraku Sushi | Island Vintage Wine Bar | Noi Thai Cuisine | Restaurant Suntory
P.F. Chang’s | The Cheesecake Factory | Tim Ho Wan | TsuruTonTan Udon | Wolfgang’s Steakhouse | Partial Listing
Opposite page Illumination (2025) Collage, with text excerpt from “Where will you be? Why Black Lives Matter in the Hawaiian” by Joy
Lehuanani Enomoto
About the Artist
Nicole Maileen Woo is a holistic artist mama, hearthkeeper, energist and native New Yorker of African and Chinese descent. Using a wide range of mediums (analog collage, painting, photography and more), she makes art that inspires connection, upliftment, and healing reflecting her devotion to exploring the spiritual nature of humanity. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, New York City, Beijing, and most recently in Honolulu at MOA Hawaii.
Reading, Recovery, & Resistance
THROUGH VOICES THAT CHALLENGE DOMINANT CULTURAL NARRATIVES, READERS DISCOVER NOT JUST ALTERNATE HISTORIES AND PERSPECTIVES, BUT NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR WHO THEY MIGHT BECOME.
TEXT BY ARTWORKS BY
Like many others across Hawaiʻi, my family is “new” to the United States of America. My parents were the first generation to earn US citizenship. They arrived fresh off a plane from a small, South American nation where the weather and people are warm, Guyana. Collectively, we taught ourselves and each other to navigate often complicated American systems and ways of living. We spent too much of our days orienting ourselves to an unfamiliar nation while perpetuating our ethnic and national cultural identities.
I was born, years later, in the Big Apple, New York City. Soon after, my mama sent me to her home country to be enriched by my maternal family in Guyana. Like many hardworking diasporic people, a village raised me. They often worked long shifts while advancing their education. I was shuffled among a collective of caretakers which included each co-parent, their siblings, godparents, and “play” aunts and uncles. With age, I became a latchkey kid, moving between school and home during the week and my aunt and uncle’s house on the weekends.
Despite growing up at the bloom of dial-up internet in the early ’00s, my single Caribbean father refused to allow TVs and computers to be my primary source of entertainment. Instead, he told me, “Pick up a book.” I would find one, drag my kidsized recliner into my 4-foot-by-4-foot bedroom closet, hoist the green banker’s
_ KRYSTAL HOPE _ NICOLE MAILEEN WOO
lamp off the dresser, and carefully place it on the floor of the closet before closing the door. In this small, dimly lit space, I left my home and traveled somewhere else page by page.
Eventually, I grew too big for the comfort of my closet. I soon discovered the library to be the next best place to camp out. My first library in South Ozone Park, Queens was situated in a predominately African American, Afro-Caribbean, IndoCaribbean, and Latin American neighborhood. I devoured West African folk tales about the cunning spider Anansi, the Xhosa fable of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters , and the anthropomorphic southern American story of Mirandy and Brother Wind.
As I matured and attended schools beyond my neighborhood, books shifted from culturally parallel tales to the Sweet Valley High and Harry Potter series. The colorful reflections of my culture, history, and perspective became muddled, monochromatic, and myopic. Stuck between the classroom’s conveniently neat, narrow history of the United States and the gaps in my Afro-Caribbean history, I got lost somewhere as a “third culture kid.” A term first articulated by Ruth Hill Useem in the late 1970s, Useem and other researchers observed the unique experiences of North American children growing up between the culture they were birthed into and another culture they spent significant
developmental stages within. Although third culture kids are typically associated with children growing up as military dependents and missionaries, I shared similar liminal experiences between Afro-Caribbean, African American and American cultures.
The dense, disorienting fog lifted after I stumbled out of a predominately white American collegiate institution into Wordpress blogs and books that illuminated the illusive, dark corners of my history and identities. I found bloggers through the Crunk Feminist Collective and authors like bell hooks and Joan Morgan who mirrored the love and pride in Black culture I had been missing for years. Starlight, seemingly from millions of galaxies away, finally making its way through the darkness. Through them, I found so many parts of myself I was first unable to articulate. The more I understood and discovered about myself and my history, the more my lived experiences made sense — I found the words.
“If you want to hide something from a people, put it in a book,” my dad often said. His sentiment hinted at cultural apathy towards reading and the historic, systemic punishment of enslaved African peoples who were forbidden to read. I learned the hard way that not all narratives are woven with love. Afro-Caribbean and/or American and/or Indigenous peoples are no strangers to stories being told about us without us. Oftentimes, our stories begin, not with the myths and legends we were told or read growing up, but at the harrowing first-contact with the people who subjugated us. In countless ways, many of us have a shared history of our cultures bound into systems that we were pounded, crunched and forced to submit to.
Invited to earn my master’s degree in Communication at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, it was essential for me to center Kānaka Maoli and Pacific Islander knowledge systems. Allying myself with the ‘āina while cracking my mind on critical texts made our solidarities obvious. Studying alongside Kānaka Maoli artists, thinkers, cultural protectors, and writers bound
me closer in the collective struggle and renaissance of our peoples. The ongoing Kū Kia‘i Mauna and Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 reinforced the importance of solidarity and insistence on resistance.
Reading sociopolitical and intercultural texts along with choke children’s books helped me uncover connections between Kānaka histories, perspectives, and realities analogous with the Black diasporic experience. Outside of the institutional classroom options, online syllabi like the Maunakea Syllabus, the #PopoloSyllabus, and Black Lives Matter: Anti-Racism Resources for the Hawai‘i Community were great ways to get started. I found anecdotes in poems that lauded the African American and Afro-Caribbean literary icons I gained strength and wisdom from. I encountered shared strategies of righteous defiance and other stories of self-denigration while trying to find ourselves beneath the heavy, thick, suffocating cloth of colonialism. New cousins of resistance and perseverance!
The ongoing demographic shifts across the Hawaiian Islands are creating generations of third and cross-cultural diasporic people who are growing up in the United States and internationally who will look for and need their stories. Increasing bans on books threaten the multiplicity of our truths that reveal the breadth of our experiences.
Yet still, there are physical places juicy and ripe with histories and perspectives of old, present, and future Hawaiʻi — literary homes, where we can go to find fragments of ourselves when we need validation, escape, tools, and community connection — a celebration of radical hope. When we look past the limiting stories, we can reclaim hidden parts of ourselves through richer, more nuanced narratives. These new tales that emerge exist because someone like us wanted our experiences to be witnessed and honored. When we know who we are, our history, and what we stand for, we can be steadfast in our values. At your local, independent, and private bookshops, and on the shelves of your public libraries, our stories are waiting for you.a
a mini-compendium to libraries, bookshops, and reading spaces
o‘ahu
Native Books at Arts & Letters
Thoughtful selection with a must-browse section on Hawai‘i politics and aloha ‘āina. nativebookshawaii.org
Da Shop
Cozy community bookstore in Kaimukī that specializes in popular national, international, and local titles for all ages. dashophnl.com
Phillis Wheatley Free Black Women’s Library
Free and small independent library with a unique collection of works by Black women and femme authors located at UH-Mānoa. librarycat.org/lib/thesistercirclemanoa
maui
Native Intelligence
Kānaka-owned boutique in Wailuku with select books on Hawaiian ‘ike. native-intel.com
hawai‘i island
Basically Books
Hilo’s independent bookstore since 1985. basicallybooks.com
Kona Stories Book Store
Charming store offering new and used books highlighting local authors. konastories.com, @konastories
kaua‘i
Māhele at Kauaʻi Museum
Gift shop showcasing Hawaiian cultural treasures about the Garden Isle’s heritage. kauaimuseum.org
Talk Story Bookstore
Indie retailer of new and used titles that is the westernmost bookstore in the U.S. talkstorybookstore.com
statewide
Hawai‘i State Public Library
Fifty-one library system serving the pae ʻāina. Library cards are free for residents; available for purchase for non-residents. All visitors can use digital and print resources in-house free-of-charge. librarieshawaii.org
Little Free Library
Global network of volunteer-led, book-exchange boxes. More than 45 locations are currently searchable online. littlefreelibrary.org
Capitol Modern is Hawai'i's State Art Museum, the primary venue for the display and interpretation of the Art in Public Places Collection, the largest collection of contemporary Hawai'i art.
FREE ADMISSION
OPEN MONDAY-SATURDAY 10AM-4PM
250 SOUTH HOTEL STREET HONOLULU, HI 96813
Raw Forms
FREEDIVER AND DESIGNER NICO JAGER CRAFTS SHELL JEWELRY THAT CONJURES THE OCEAN’S ELEMENTAL ENERGY.
TEXT BY IMAGES BY
_ EUNICA ESCALANTE _ SHILOH PERKINS
The jeweler Nico Jager’s design studio is little more than an office desk. Inside the garage of his childhood home in Kāne‘ohe, the space is wedged beside a 15-foot sailing boat and surrounded by stacks of Yeti coolers, its countertop littered with hundreds of shells. Some are categorized by type (spikes, cones, cowries) in teeming jars, while others are casually gathered in stray containers, like the ‘opihi shells he has stored in a lau hala basket. I wonder aloud how difficult it must have been to harvest one for the spiked ʻopihi necklaces his brand, 444ever, has become known for, let alone the dozens that he has accumulated over the course of three years. So notorious are ʻopihi for being dangerous to harvest, clinging to rocky shorelines pounded by churning waves, that one rather grim ‘ōlelo noʻeau — “He ia make ka opihi” — deems it the fish of death. (Another adage jauntily warns: “White water coming, no foolin’ around / ʻOpihi man in the sun / ʻOpihi man grab your bag and run.”)
“Yeah, the danger, it’s very addictive,” says Jager, as he gives me a tour of his workshop on a brisk December morning, Jawaiian music leaking out from his phone speakers. Bleached blonde
Styling by Single Double _ Assistant
stylist: Raigen Brabham
NICO JAGER STARTED 444EVER IN 2022. HE HAS GAINED A REPUTATION MAKING SPIKEY NECKLACES WITH ‘OPIHI, A SHELL DANGEROUS TO HARVEST DUE TO ITS CLINGY NATURE ON ROCKY SHORELINES POUNDED BY CHURNING WAVES. OVERLEAF, IMAGES BY JOHN
HOOK.
and tattooed, Jager telegraphs a certain punk attitude, describing the rush of picking shells while a large wave crashes overhead, praying that he can avoid the rocks below. “But at the end of it, the reward is these beautiful shells,” he says. “It’s like they’re so beautiful that it keeps me going back to these dangerous spots.” With this, the little conches that I thought were so dainty and charming began to take on the fact of their true form: hardy exoskeletons that dwelled in the ocean’s deep, relentless chaos.
This paradigm shift from delicate to dangerous is one that Jager wants his jewelry to convey. The spiky settings and cold silver that embellishes his foraged shells translate the raw nature from which they were plucked. “As you go in the ocean and the waves are crashing on the rocks, and there are all these big creatures swimming next to you, vana everywhere, sharp, jagged rocks,” he says, “there’s a whole side of danger and power that captivates you, and it pulls you in.”
Shells are among some of the first objects ancient humans used for self-adornment. The oldest piece of jewelry in the world is a beaded necklace of perforated shells found in Morocco, dated to be at least 142,000 years old. In Hawaiʻi, shells would be strung together into lei for personal decoration or exchanged as gifts. In an archipelago devoid of gems and metals, shells, along with bird feathers, nuts, and flowers, became the coveted materials of ornamentation. From the 1960s, when surfers began sporting them as chokers, Hawaiian shell jewelry saw periodic waves of trendiness beyond the islands. (Actor and singer David Cassidy’s iconic puka shell necklaces, as seen on episodes of The Partridge Family , is often credited with popularizing them in mainstream America.) Today, the precious shell lei of Niʻihau, made up of hundreds of miniscule shells handpicked from the island’s beaches, are considered among the most expensive shell jewelry in the world — the only shell lei that can be insured like diamonds. Many cost upwards of thousands of dollars, due as
much to the labor and time it takes as to the shells’ extreme rarity, given that access to the island is limited for outsiders. Still, common association persists, deeming shells as dainty and feminine, a characterization seen in many popular, boho interpretations: a sunrise shell elegantly draped from a thin, gold chain; tiny, spiraling cone shells transformed into delicate earrings.
To Jager, though, these shells are more than just pretty little things. “A little ocean mollusk, its whole life purpose is to create this shell as protection, as an adornment for itself. This is the outcome of the life of a mollusk, a shell. It leaves you in awe,” he says in an almost childlike wonder. Jager grew up accompanying his father to the beach, scrounging the shoreline for rocks and corals and, of course, shells, while his father kitesurfed in the distance. It’s a memory that he rhapsodizes about lovingly, recalling the joy he felt playing and foraging in the sand. Over the years, though, other interests pulled him away from the ocean, until a friend invited him to go diving for shells at Keawaʻula Beach. “It was during Covid-time. There wasn’t much we could do,” he says, referencing the social distancing regulations that rendered many public spaces, other than the ocean, inaccessible. “I wasn’t much into shells at the time. So, I was like ‘OK, I’ll go along, and just see how it goes.’” That first dive, he came back ashore with a handful of cowrie shells, nothing special considering the collection that he has now. And yet, the act, like the beachcombing treasure hunts he had as a child, unearthed a long-buried affinity for the ocean and its malacological wonders. Inspired, he began to make jewelry out of the shells he dove for. He signed up for an introduction to jewelry making course at the Honolulu Museum of Art School, then taught himself the rest through online tutorials and plenty of nights improvising above the stove of his old Kaimukī apartment, smoke wafting everywhere as he solders materials together. He remembers his first iterations were merely experiments in
“The ocean is my church. When you’re diving, you can’t talk to anybody. You’re underwater, and you’re left alone with your thoughts. It’s like a spiritual thing.”
nico jager, jeweler
how many spikes he could fit on a piece, hand-pulling each barb to give the shell a “raw edginess, that spice,” he says. It’s not surprising that Jager lists Chrome Hearts as one of his aesthetic inspirations, known for its gothic-inspired sterling silver jewelry. One can see the influence in Jager’s rings, thick metal biker-like bands textured with shells such as ʻōpihi and Hawaiian spindle, both of which he found on Oʻahu’s south shore, not to mention the pendants that hang from chunky silver chains styled like a large baroque cross dotted with ceramic ʻopihi or a five-pointed star casted out of shark teeth.
The sentiment behind each piece, though, is all Jager’s. He speaks about the ocean and her shells in rapt, sacral tones. “The ocean is my church,” he says. “When you’re diving, you can’t talk to anybody. You’re underwater, and you’re left alone with your thoughts. It’s so meditative for me. It’s like a spiritual thing.” In 2023, Jager began to freedive more regularly, a method of shelling that has brought a new philosophy to his process, like succumbing to a Dasein state. Without the aid of scuba tanks, each dive lasts for as long as Jager can hold his breath, making it all feel “like borrowed time.” As a result, the chance of finding shells
become all the more special. “You can put yourself in the right spot, in the right beach, you can go at the right conditions. But if the ocean doesn’t want to present its treasures to you, you’re not going to see nothing,” he says. “You’ll come out and just see rocks and sand.” Add to this the inherent dangers to diving in Hawaiʻi’s waters, from serrated rocks to pounding surf to prickly wildlife, and every shell Jager comes back with feels like a small miracle. His jewelry, then, is a wearable embodiment of that ephemeral thrill, a marriage of the ocean’s delicate beauty and crushing will. “It’s like a memory museum,” he says. “What all these shells are are just reflections of moments in time.”
The following Saturday morning, Jager is manning a booth at the Kakaʻako Farmers Market, his first public event since starting the brand in 2022. He’s chatting with a customer about his latest dive, when he came across a moray eel amongst the coral. His latest wares are artfully arranged across the countertop — studded rings and spiked necklaces and shark teeth earrings draped over black velvet boxes. Another customer, this one with a young daughter, approaches. Jager greets them both with a broad smile, carefully explaining the
WHEN JAGER STARTED REGULARLY FREEDIVING, HE FOUND THE UNPREDICTABLE HARVEST ITSELF SPECIAL, SAYING, “IT’S LIKE A MEMORY MUSEUM. WHAT ALL THESE SHELLS ARE ARE JUST REFLECTIONS OF MOMENTS IN TIME.”
various shells displayed across the table, like a scientist expounding on his specimens. There’s a reverence in the way he speaks about the shells, in the way he treats them as if they were the world’s most precious jewels. Humans have held shells in high esteem for centuries, says Jager, who laments how technology has pulled us away from the earth’s natural
beauty. “My end goal is to have a whole movement of our generation admiring the seashells and being in awe of that again. It’s a very raw form of art. It’s nature’s art,” he says. “I just want people to be as mesmerized as I am.” A
The Artist Is Present
AFTER YEARS OF RELYING ON COMMISSIONS AND COLLABORATIONS, KAILUA-BORN ILLUSTRATOR SHAR TUIASOA IS TELLING HER OWN STORY.
TEXT
BY
IMAGES
BY
_ MIA ANZALONE _ WILL MATSUDA
In the pictorial realm of Shar Tuiasoa, curvaceous Pacific Islander women take up space. Here, in a multiverse of her making untainted by exploitative forces, a Polynesian Barbie world awaits, where girls lick shave ice like it’s nobody’s business, a lady longboarder casually hangs ten, and a curious swimmer examines a floating jellyfish, her hair trailing with buoyant thickness. In their totality, this fantasia of representation is saying something, whether you hear it or not.
So is Tuiasoa, the multihyphenate creator of Punky Aloha Studio, an illustration brand of freelance and artistic work based out of Tuiasoa’s home studio in Kailua, Oʻahu. When I meet the muralist, illustrator, and children’s book author at a Kailua coffee shop, on a rainy November day, she glides through the door with her hair swept into an immaculate tita bun, sporting a cozy gray sweatshirt that declares “Free Pasifika” in hot pink letters. Upon settling into her seat, she promises she didn’t intend to coordinate her attire with the coinciding Māori protests against a bill that would diminish aboriginal rights in Aotearoa, but something tells me she didn’t even have to think about it. Like her work, Tuiasoa’s way of life is so immersed in rendering the existence of Polynesian women that advocating for their livelihoods (even if it is just a sweatshirt) comes as second nature.
This isn’t a surprise given that Tuiasoa started Punky Aloha in 2018 in reaction to not seeing herself reflected — neither her Tongan heritage nor coconut tree climbing childhood — in the artwork springing up around Kailua. “We have to push back when there are so many new things coming in that make you feel like you’re a little less at home,” she says, alluding to the creeping gentrification and shifting demographics of her oncequaint hometown. “With me, it’s just pushing back by creating
“Having girls see that there’s a woman illustrator who is from their same background out there doing stuff, I think that is meaningful. That still feels very community-driven.”
shar tuiasoa, artist
artwork that reminds us of who we are and that we do belong here and that we can feel empowered here.”
Tuiasoa started out by collaborating with small local businesses like illustrating wrappers for Mānoa Chocolate, a bean-to-bar chocolatier, and spray painting massive murals in Kakaʻako for Worldwide Walls, an international arts festival celebrating local talent. Eventually she booked “bucket-list” clients creating Disney postcards for the Epcot’s International Festival of Arts, a New York Times editorial illustration, and a yet-to-be-seen wrap-around design for an Alaska Airlines plane. Her contributions to these commercial enterprises bring Polynesian women to the foreground, their unapologetically abundant hair adorned with lilikoʻi lei poʻo and lau hala hats. “Having Pasifika characters and artwork put on a global scale or a national scale, that’s extremely important,” Tuiasoa says. “Having eyes on that, having girls see that there’s a woman illustrator who is from their same background out there doing stuff — I think that is meaningful. That still feels very community-driven.”
But amid the applause of representation, Tuiasoa sometimes worries about being boxed in, or worse, being tokenized
for corporate diversity initiatives. She feels a responsibility to highlight the hardships that can come with being a Polynesian woman, but also the joy that is embedded within this identity. And while she has a lot of opinions about occupation and colonialism, cultural losses, and accountability, her work veers from righteous anger, opting instead to create a world that is sovereign from any colonial forces. “A lot of my artwork does strive to shine a life on the Pacific and Pacific Island cultures in a way that’s more of me wanting [people] to see us as equals or see us as just existing,” she says.
For Tuiasoa, illustrating her Polynesian wāhine engaging in the most mundane of activities, like riding a bike or enjoying a cup of coffee, is a powerful statement in its own right. While Tuiasoa has familial connections to Tonga — her father was raised in Haʻakame, a small village on the island of Tongatapu, where she still has family — Hawaiʻi is what she knows, and Hawaiian culture is what she is familiar with. As a result, her artwork is a collaboration of Pasifika cultures, a knowing nod to the Tongan and Fijian scholar Epeli Hauʻofa. Tuiasoa, who carries a copy of We Are The Ocean: Selected Works wherever she goes, channels Hau‘ofa’s vision of Oceania as vast and interconnected,
through Punky Aloha’s colorful mishmash of a cross-pollinating Pasifika linked by the ocean rather than divided by it.
Seven years after starting Punky Aloha, Tuiasoa is in a near-perfect position for an artist. For one, she’s able to sustain a living by creating artwork for local and international brands (what she calls her “bread and butter”), but despite her
signature style, commissioned work isn’t feeding her soul. So when Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles approached Tuiasoa in 2024 about exhibiting her work, she jumped at the opportunity.
The result was her debut solo exhibition, Time Before Us, a collection of 10 acrylic paintings, three of them displayed in poplar wood frames hand carved by
Acrylic on wood panel in painted wood frame
Guidance , 2024
From Tuiasoa’s debut solo show, Time Before Us , a collection of 10 acrylic paintings exhibited in Los Angeles.
AFTER RETURNING TO KAILUA FROM CALIFORNIA, TUIASOA FELT ALIENATED BY THE GENTRIFICATION OF HER HOMETOWN, SPARKING THE CREATIONOF PUNKY ALOHA STUDIO. “WE HAVE TO PUSH BACK WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY NEW THINGS COMING IN THAT MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE A LITTLE LESS AT HOME,” SHE SAYS.
Kumu William Miki Kalaniopio Cook. Each work depicted a female portrait of a Pacific Islander value, practice, or resource. The show’s title refers to the Pasifika concept of kuonga maʻa, a perspective that sees the future as behind us and the past in front. “That was really what sparked the entire body of work,” she says. “It was just the intertwining of the past and the future and how important the past is to our people and the way we view it. I really wanted to see how I could try and visually explain that or celebrate that more.”
Free of any corporate expectation or client approvals, Tuiasoa felt liberated to lean into her fantastical nerdiness, geeking out about Pasifika easter eggs hidden within the works; for example, the
lollipops in the background of The Mei ʻAi Maker are really Polynesian symbols of food, and the lacework around the figure’s neck in Guidance features a tapa pattern for the tavake, or white-tailed tropicbird, also known as koa‘e kea in Hawaiian. “There were some fashion elements to it, but everything, every element in there had a deeper meaning and history to it,” she says. “If you ask a question about it, I can tell you something new about our culture.”
When the show opened last August, the weight of Tuiasoa’s accomplishments were not lost on her. Just over a decade had passed since she moved from Kailua to attend Laguna College of Art and Design. With her dreams of becoming a studio
animator and comic strip artist, along with her daughter, partner at the time, and a surfboard in tow, the small clan initially slept in her car when they first moved to the continent, barely scraping by. Fast forward to now, and Tuiasoa is flying to her own debut exhibit, and by the time she lands in Los Angeles, the gallery will have called her to say that her entire show is already sold out.
The actual opening, then, was a true celebration of her journey as an artist, dating back to being a toddler on her mother’s hip as she attended fine artist Snowden Hodges’ classes at Windward Community College, later becoming Hodges’ student herself. “When you teach [art] for a long time, you know when people come in and they’ve already got a jump on it, but it was just natural to her,” Hodges says. “She was a born artist. She had ideas, and she was very creative, and just really a bright girl.”
Tuiasoa lights up as she recalls seeing Polynesians fill up Thinkspace, almost like a crowded scene she might create for one of her Punky Aloha art pieces. “For my family that lives up there to come see the show and to bring me lei, and to have my gallery just filled to the brim with really loud Polynesians chee-hooing and being just the most — it just meant so much to me,” Tuiasoa says.
Weeks later, in the backyard studio of her Keolu Hills home, not far from where she grew up in Enchanted Lakes, Tuiasoa is still reeling from the happiness of that day. Amid the rustling of surrounding palms and infrequent barks of her poi dog, Kalo, she’s entering a new chapter in her career. Besides booking more galleries, Tuiasoa wants to commit more time to her Punky Aloha Scholarship for Pasifika Creatives that awards $7,500 of her own money to Pacific Islander creatives.
AN ESTABLISHED ARTIST, TUIASOA HAS WORKED WITH NEARLY ALL OF AN ILLUSTRATOR’S BUCKET-LIST CLIENTS LIKE DISNEY, AMAZON STUDIOS, SEPHORA, AND TARGET. NEXT? BOOKING MORE GALLERIES AND CREATING ART THAT FULLY REPRESENTS HER VOICE
The Mea ’Ai Maker, 2024
Also on her list is to be more assertive in telling her own story, advocacy included. Art should never be separated from personal or political feelings, Tuiasoa believes, even at one’s own expense. “It’s scary to think I might not get hired, but you have to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and think, ʻListen, if me sticking up for reproductive rights or for trans rights or Palestine means it costs me a job, those are just companies I don’t want to work with,” she says. “I’m not constantly making activist artwork, but for what I have made, I’ve never been without work.” With that, in the sacred space of her studio, Tuiasoa takes a brief moment for herself to tighten her topknot. She whips her head down to gather her hair, sweeps it all back up with a practiced rotation of the wrist, and punctures her locks with a pin right in its side. The artist is ready for whatever comes next. a
Acrylic on wood panel in painted wood frame
“
be visualizations of an alternate or parallel or reinterpreted version of a mo‘olelo. ” —
Tiare Ribeaux
WE ASKED NATIVE HAWAIIAN ARTISTS AND LUMINARIES ABOUT THE ARTWORKS SHIFTING KĀNAKA MAOLI ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY. THESE ARE THEIR ANSWERS.
Twenty Kānaka Artists on Twenty-Five Years of Hawaiian Art
Billboard I (The sovereignty of the land is perpetuated in righteousness)
artwork by drew kahu‘āina broderick (2017)
Billboard I is a life-size reproduction of a billboard that was installed inside the entrance of the old Sports Authority building in Kaka‘ako ... a memory. I saw the piece regularly, when it was a focal point for the nascent Honolulu Biennial, curated by Fumio Nanjo and Ngahiraka Mason, which has now morphed into the Hawai‘i Triennial. At any rate, the piece,
Billboard I, has stayed with me. It took me a while to appreciate the juxtaposition of the billboard-sized excerpt of a palm tree next to a reproduction of its source work, the George Carter painting, Death of Captain Cook, 1783, alongside the neon-lit “Vacancy” sign. The witness, the violence, the glowing aftermath of commercialization/commodification of
place. For me, its contemporary art at its best — disturbingly provocative, an on-point commentary of the Hawai‘i we live in today.
Maile Meyer is the owner and founder of Native Books and Nā Mea Hawaiʻi. Interview by Matthew Dekneef
Detail of Billboard I (The sovereignty of the land is perpetuated in righteousness) , 2017. Vinyl banner and neon sign on support structure, framed reproduction of a historical artwork Death of Captain Cook , George Carter, 1783, from the collection of The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. Courtesy of the artist.
I really respond to work by Hawaiians that isn’t necessarily or literally about Hawaiʻi and being Hawaiian. When I think about the contemporary aesthetic of Hawaiʻi, it’s contained and moved by the industries here, industries that are based on extraction. There’s this push and pull between the use of culture and language and Hawaiian aesthetics as a form of soft power in challenging those industries. But there’s something that resonates with me in obscuring
Late Nite Saints
film by michael todd berland and christian novelli (2020)
Film stills on this and opening spread, courtesy of the artists.
those identifiers, withholding them, and operating in a way that transcends them. Late Nite Saints takes place in the Pacific Northwest. It’s this energy of Oregon, Washington, Cascadia that is completely separated from Hawaiʻi in its essence. But there’s still a grounding in that one of the filmmakers, Michael Todd Berland, is Hawaiian.
Late Nite Saints to me is an exercise in revealing the absolute and divine through the mundane, something that I
want to accomplish in my own practice. I want my art to transcend flesh and pierce the divine through a similar mystic attuning. In one scene, Michael describes a family of raccoons eating garbage outside of the only grocery store as being in their own little personal heaven. In the next scene, Michael and Christian go to the nearby beach and talk about everyone they knew, how they would act if they were there. It all felt mystical and familiar. I want art to
be that way here. Sentimental, mystical, and attuned to the sacred without pretense and self-importance.
Nainoa Rosehill is a multidisciplinary artist.
Interview by Eunica Escalante
In 2015, we held a casting for a film I produced [Waikiki] at a coworking space, BoxJelly, which at the time also housed an office for Salvage Public. I didn't know anything about the brand, but I immediately recognized that trapezoid as Lēʻahi. More than being a cool, Ellsworth Kelly-esque Diamond Head logo, it also felt like a CAPTCHA litmus test for Hawaiʻi (especially Honolulu) localness: If you see a trapezoid, you’re not local; if you see Diamond Head, you’re local. That’s how I first encountered Salvage Public as a
Hawaiian brand. My favorite experience with the shape, though, was in 2019 while I was donating graphic and web design on Maunakea during the protests of the Thirty Meter Telescope. I saw Ha‘a Keaulana wearing what is now one of my favorite articles of clothing: the upsidedown “1893” T-shirt, a reference to the overthrow, with proceeds being sent to the mauna. It’s just a continuation of what they do so well: extremely intelligent graphic design that communicates a lot, but subtly, and is very clear about who it’s speaking to and where.
Nicole Naone is an artist. Interview by Matthew Dekneef
Salvage Public
brand by joseph serrao, noah serrao, and nāpali souza (2013)
Opening spread, Waikīkī, 2015. Image by Josiah Patterson.
Out of Darkness, was born the light…
mural by cory kamehanaokalā holt taum (2020)
I have been to some exhibitions at Aupuni Space with great work, but the facade is a striking piece, in and of itself. For Out of Darkness was born the light…, the color is very indicative to me of the natural landscape of Hawaiʻi. Hawaiians experience Hawaiʻi in a specific way, and I think one of those ways is through color, so the colors that he uses — this moody, dark, almost-red, dirt-road kind of palette — are my favorite to experience Hawaiʻi. If you’ve ever looked through a photography book on Hawaiʻi — those old school, vintage kinds of feels and textures — that’s what I get from the colors alone.
To me, Cory’s work is very thoughtful and yet still modern. His pieces, Out of Darkness was born the light…, are always multilayered, which is a distinctly Hawaiian approach to art-making. I know Cory as an apprentice of traditional tattoo artist Keone Nunes — a lot of those motifs you’ll see in his work, and as a result they’re not just slapped on, there’s intention. These motifs are passed down and each comes with a special manaʻo behind it. So whatever he knows about them isn’t necessarily for the masses to know, but it’s there.
He really does impact my own art because I’m able to talk to Cory about the dilemma that comes up with Hawaiian artists: how best to honor tradition, but also keep it alive and moving forward. To me, you want to create a piece that you can see and honor your teachers in, but also have it be in conversation with the here and now. That’s the most important thing to me as a Hawaiian artist, that we kind of have our foot in two worlds all the time, like the Western and the traditional. If you lean more to one side, or lean more towards the other side, then it ends up being something else. But, if you’re able to — and it’s very difficult to do this — marry the two sides, then it’ll become unique in and of itself. What Cory is doing with these murals is creating something that wasn’t there before. It’s always best to honor, as like anything you do, the people that brought you there, and I think he does that successfully.
Noa Gardner is a playwright. Interview by Mia Anzalone
View from Auahi Street. Courtesy of the artist and Aupuni Space.
Outside Kamehameha Exhibit Hall 1 on lobby level at Hawai‘i Convention Center. Image by
Hawaiʻi Loa Kū Like
Kākou
community mural led by meleanna meyer, solomon enos, harinani orme, kahi ching, and al lagunero (2011)
Chris Rohrer.
I met Meleanna Meyer on a project in San Francisco for emerging Indigenous artists. She invited me to be a part of the Hawaiʻi Loa Kū Like Kākou mural. To me, it was cool because it was my first time witnessing a community mural at that scale. It was multi-generational: five master artists, a few alakaʻi, young adults that included myself, and then they had a whole bunch of youth from Hawaiian charter schools. It was just cool to see so many hands create one mural. I think that’s what always inspires me. We almost didn’t want to touch it when we were working on the mural, but it was empowering to be en-
couraged to be a part of it. That was the first time I saw a mural reveal itself. It was almost like a spiritual thing for me, just making something out of nothing, kind of trusting the process. I had done my own form of murals and one or two community murals prior to that, but this one was just a special experience. It took place in one week and we just got to see day by day how it developed.
I think a lot of times artists can have trouble collaborating together, but that was the magic of the whole thing, seeing everyone in harmony. All of the artists involved were Native Hawaiian, but there was a large support team of
all different people. At that point, there wasn't a piece in the Hawai‘i Convention Center that was from a Hawaiian artist, it was only artists from other places, so that was an important thing to have a monumental piece like that created by Hawaiians. That mural is the pinnacle of what I always strive to reach in my mural art now, and I don’t think I can reach it, because that magic is in the community. It’s from all the hands that go into it.
Cory Kamehanaokalā Holt Taum is a mural artist and cultural practitioner. Interview by Mia Anzalone
Ka Holokū
artwork by ualani davis and brandon ng (2011)
The holokū featured throughout the photos has this very particular missionary history of the mid-1800s, and albumen printing, the photographic process that they used to capture the images, was the most popular form of photography around the time. So when Brandon Ng first showed me these black-and-white photographs, which he and Ualani created while B.F.A students at UH Mānoa, it felt like they could be from the 1800s, but they also feel like they could be now.
These images of this woman and her holokū at these really important, resonant, and powerful sites just kept coming back to me at different moments throughout the years. These are also sites that have a lot of meaning for me; Puʻu o Mahuka Heaiu up above Waimea has a big part in my book Clairboyance; Ulupō Heiau has been a very special place for my spouse and me. It’s almost like there’s a residue that stays in the back of your mind when art moves you. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, I thought about this site for a long time, and it wasn’t conscious.”
One of the biggest aspects of my writing and my writing practice is perspective — what shifts my perspective or helps me see something different. These photos are very contemporary, but they also move me to the past in amazing ways that make me consider a reclamation of space for Kānaka Maoli.
Kristiana Kahaukawila is a writer. Interview by Eunica Escalante
8”x10” albumen prints, contact printed from 8”x10” negatives. Across, top: Kūkaniloko, Wahiawā. Below: Kawaiaha‘o Church, Honolulu . Opening spread: ‘Iolani Palace, Honolulu. Courtesy of the artists.
Transitive Venus
Nicole Naone’s sculptures show the connection and evolution, to me, of contemporary Hawai‘i sculptors. Her exhibition, Mass, consisted of multiple sculptures varying in size. Each sculpture was a section of a larger piece. That body of work feels connected to Modernists of the 1940s and ’50s like Satoru Abe and Tadashi Sato, with an understanding of form and abstraction that’s in conversation with them. One piece that stood out to me is called Transitive Venus. The sculpture appeared to be shrinking, almost to the point of becoming jewelry. The show was presented with a pop sensibility, but there’s way more going on with the art.
What’s exciting about Naone’s work is that it’s always personal. As Hawaiian artists, we can sometimes feel like we’re always expected or required to create discussions exclusively around contemporary Hawaiian issues, at the expense of our own personal issues, you know? That also applies to global issues. Shape and design are always an element of it, but there are also bold statements about womanhood, motherhood, gender and the body. The work is easy to access because of its beautiful simplicity, but it’s entrenched with layers and questions about these topics, which pose themselves to you the longer you look at them; sculptures that dare to be vulnerable and truthful, not just pretty. Everything matters in her pieces.
Bronze sculpture, 2 inches by 1.5 inches by 6 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Chris Kahunahana is a filmmaker. Interview by Matthew Dekneef
sculpture by nicole naone (2012)
20 minute workout [wip]
artwork by maliewai productions (2023—)
Directed by kekahi wahi x Bradley Capello. Starring Maddie Biven, Josh Tengan, Lise Michelle Suguitan Childers, Reise Kochi, Sean Connelly, and YOU. Kealakekua, Ka‘awaloa, Kona, Hawai‘i. Released by Aupuni Space on February 14, 2024. Courtesy of the artists.
20 minute workout is actually part of a larger multi-year project called Revisiting Kealakekua Bay, Reworking the Captain Cook Monument (2018–2025) initiated by Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick as an artist and curator in August 2018. The overall project came about at a time when monuments across the U.S. were being interrogated
their relevance and histories being questioned and revisited. This work is really looking at Kealakekua Bay as an important wahi pana, where there also happens to be this monument commemorating Captain Cook.
What’s interesting to me about 20 minute workout is that it’s the expression of a group of artists who are both Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian engaging in native and non-native collaboration to counter colonial narratives of exploration, expansion, and discovery, grounding and centering the values and peoples of this place. It’s presented as an instructional workout video, referencing a lot of ’80s visual culture, and uses the Captain Cook monument as not a machine exactly, but kind of reduces it to a backdrop, a parody.
On another level, I like that what you’re also watching is a group of friends working something out together; at the time of the
piece’s release, it was also labeled a workin-progress. They're engaging Kealakekua Bay, which logistically can only be accessed by boat or by Kaʻawaloa trail, a strenuous cliff hike, with a level of production and intention representing a diversity of experiences, from dance and movement to film and performance. It showcases play, humor, and experimentation, which is a super important part of its collaborative process. It brings a playfulness that critiques the ridiculousness and absurdity of the monument itself and then further disempowers it. To me, that overall collaborative experience represented in the work is key. Addressing these problematic histories is a thing that Hawaiian artists have always done, but it feels particularly charged by the current cultural climate in the U.S. and, by extension, Hawai‘i right now.
Josh Tengan is a Honolulu-based curator. Interview by Matthew Dekneef
Marques Hanalei Marzan is a fiber artist who works in a variety of materials, whether it’s lau hala or ‘aha (cord braided of coconut husk). I’ve always respected and looked up to Hanalei and his work. Everything he does is so impressive and detailed. He’s one of my favorite living Hawaiian artists. I’ve always been fascinated by his kōkō puʻupuʻu, which is a very finely corded net and traditionally handled by kahu of high rank to carry calabashes or lift things off the ground. They’re made with a certain type of knotting technique that’s made with one consecutive cord very ornate and very beautiful.
One of my favorite pieces of his is Pe‘ahimauliola, a pe‘ahi, or fan, he created for The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. He presented it during the highly-
publicized repatriation of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s ‘ahu ‘ula and mahiole, and it was so memorable because not too many people know how to make a pe‘ahi like that in the traditional manner. He also incorporated the design of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s cape onto it — talk about artistry! I believe that Pe‘ahimauliola is an example of how he’s keeping these traditional Hawaiian art forms alive by making them contemporary — it’s perfectly suited and resonant for this moment in time. What fascinates me is how he was able to let the mea kūpuna, or the objects in the museum, speak to him. To look, figure out, and understand how they were made. That’s the mark of a truly great artisan.
Enoka Phillips is a hulu artist. Interview by Matthew Dekneef
Peʻahimauliola
artwork by marques hanalei marzan (2016)
Pandanus leaves, coconut midribs, and cotton string. Courtesy of the artist.
KŪPAʻA
artwork by april
a.h. drexel (2014)
Kaula‘i , 3 of 15, from the installation. Courtesy of the artist.
I am interested in work that is fearless and challenges. April A.H. Drexel’s work is an unwavering commitment to investigate and research rich concepts and content driven by engagement critical to Kanaka ʻŌiwi time, place, and space. KŪPAʻA, shown as a part of the now defunct Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House’s 2014 exhibition HI Society, reveals the history of the ʻāina where it was exhibited: Makiki Heights, located in the ahupuaʻa of Waikīkī
in the moku of Kona on the island of Oʻahu. I see April’s artistic practice as Kūpaʻa, Noʻiau, Noiʻi, Hoʻopunihei and ʻAʻa. This artwork does not just speak to or contribute to Native Hawaiian art — it speaks to and of Hawaiʻi and all Indigenous communities worldwide.
Kapulani Landgraf is an artist, cultural organizer, and educator. Interview by Eunica Escalante
Polyfantastica
artwork by solomon enos (2006–ongoing)
Solomon Enos’s vision is so expansive. There are worlds within worlds in his work. Every painting or drawing he creates is an expression of worldbuilding to me because there’s always mo‘olelo within each and they’re often part of a bigger, unfolding series. Polyfantastica exemplifies that through hundreds of intricate pencil drawings that are absolutely transporting in their
detail. One illustration that stayed with me is of a Hawaiian figure that’s wearing this intricate shell-encrusted armor. I remember the description mentioning the outerwear being some sort of shell calcium carbonate refurbished from the ocean mixed with bioplastics. He’s like the Hawaiian Da Vinci in that he has visions of literal inventions that could be made or might be made in the future.
His depictions of futuristic warriors, navigators, mahi‘ai to me, they’re like sketches of the future and it constantly feeds me. Later I learned the series is related to a graphic novel-like epic in a PDF that continues this branching narrative of Hawaiian futures. When I saw Polyfantastica for the first time it gave me permission as an artist to think on these scales. I’ve
always been a huge fan of sci-fi, and he’s one of the only visual artists I know that takes the stories, aesthetics, and experiences of being Hawaiian and puts it in the context of speculative fiction; in other words, science fiction that’s really rooted in Hawaiian ways of being. What his work allows is for there to be visualizations of an alternate or parallel or reinterpreted version of a mo‘olelo.
To me, that gesture encapsulates the notion of “haʻina ʻia mai ana ka puana,” of the story continuing to be told and evolving, but in Solomon’s case, 40,000 years now. There’s no end to the story.
Tiare Ribeaux is an artist and filmmaker. Interview by Matthew Dekneef
From Honolulu Biennial, MAKE WRONG / RIGHT / NOW , 2019. Image by Chris Rohrer. Opening spread, courtesy of the artist.
KALO
I just want to mahalo Aunty Bernice Akamine for all the art that she has done prior to her passing. KALO, in particular, is such an impactful piece that’s rooted in a cultural genealogy of resistance; at once, aesthetically pleasing and familiar, but confrontational in a way that not all mea no‘eau always are.
As an artwork, I’ve engaged with this work in a lot of different spaces; the first time was at Honolulu Museum of Art School in 2016: a collection of 87 kalo-shaped pōhaku with reprints of the Kūʻē petitions forming the stalks and leaves. It’s so visually distinct from any other piece of exhibiting art in a gallery space because all the kalo pieces are on the ground. Experiencing it in person, it’s like walking into a lo‘i. You are very careful with how you move around the pieces. People usually become quiet and introspective when they experience it. Every step you take through the aisles of her installation — the petitions, the kalo, the pōhaku — it makes you lean in like you are picking kalo, or at least, is making you experience kalo in a different way for the first time. You’re leaning in to see if maybe your kupuna’s name is on these leaves. In a way, your interaction with KALO sort of symbolizes you rediscovering yourself. Collectively, that interaction also perfectly encapsulates how in the past 10, 15 years more and more people are diving into our Lāhui’s origins, political evolutions, and revolutions of consciousness.
D. Kauwila Mahi is an artist, activist, and archivist.
Interview by Matthew Dekneef
artwork by bernice akamine (2016)
Detail and portrait by Dino Morrow. Exhibition image from CONTACT , 2019, by AJ Feducia.
Hālau Kūkulu Hawaiʻi: A Home That Builds Multitudes
Structure in Waipi‘o Valley, Hawai‘i. Courtesy of the artists.
Designed by Sean Connelly and Dominic Leong with Ethan Chan, Hannah Frossard, Remi McLain, Amir Mirza, and Chloe Mukenbeck. Hale builders, Nalani Tukuafu and Jojo Henderson. Wa‘a lashing by Nā Kālai Wa‘a with Lei‘ohu Colburn. Wood supplied by Aborica with Evan Shively. Millwork by Joinery Structures. Video documentation by kekahi wahi. Site hosted by HŌ‘Ā Kūkulukumuhana Summer Cultural Enrichment Program with Lanakila Mangauil and Honi Pahi‘ō Tagabi.
installation by after oceanic built environments lab and leong leong architecture (2024)
The threats of ethnonationalism are in full force. It feels more important than ever to prioritize artist collectives and creative collaborations that bring much-needed intersectional approaches to Native Hawaiian contemporary art. As with expanded notions of citizenship that overflow checkbox demographics, regenerative built environments challenge dominant paradigms of architecture and land use. In turn, they move us towards more caring relationships with one another and Hawaiʻi nei. We often wonder about the conservatism of Native Hawaiian art. Does it have to do with the potential repercussions associated with taking risks and making contemporary work that updates our traditions — of being criticized by colleagues, friends, or family, challenged by revered elders, punished by communities, cursed by the gods? Regardless of the reasons, Hālau Kūkulu Hawaiʻi: A Home That Builds Multitudes — a structure that adapts traditional hale and waʻa lashing techniques for contemporary architectural construction — reminds us of the ways in which innovation has been and will always be a part of Native Hawaiian creative practice.
kekahi wahi is a grassroots film initiative led by filmmaker Sancia Miala Shiba Nash and artist Drew K. Broderick.
Interview by Eunica Escalante
At right, haku mele Kumu Hina leading the Aloha ‘Āina Together We Rise Unity march, Waikīkī, 2019. Image by Kaiana Markell.
Ho‘ōho:
Kū ha‘aheo e ku‘u Hawai‘i / Mamaka kaua o ku’u ‘āina / ‘O ke ehu kakahiaka o nā ‘ōiwi o Hawai‘i nei / No ku‘u lahui e hā‘awi pau a i ola mau
Nā Pautū ‘Ehā:
Kaiko‘o ka moana kā i lana nei Hawai‘i / Nāueue a hālulu ka honua a Haumea / Nākulukulu e ka lani ki‘eki‘e kau mai i luna / Auē ke aloha ‘ole a ka malihini
Auhea wale ‘oukou pū‘ali koa o Keawe / Me ko Kamalālāwalu la me Kākuhihewa / ‘Alu mai pualu mai me ko Manokalanipō / Ka‘i mai ana me nā kama a Kahelelani
E nāue imua e nā poki‘i a e inu wai ‘awa‘awa / E wiwo‘ole a ho‘okūpa‘a ‘a‘ohe hope e ho‘i mai ai / A na‘i wale nō kākou kaukoe mau i ke ala / Auē ke aloha ‘ole a ka malihini
E lei mau i lei mau kākou e nā mamo aloha / I lei wehi ‘a‘ali’i wehi nani o ku‘u ‘āina / Hoe a mau hoe a mau no ka pono sivila / A ho‘iho‘i hou ‘ia mai ke kū‘oko‘a
“Kū Haʻaheo E Kuʻu Hawaiʻi”
mele by hinaleimoana wong-kalu (2007)
Kumu Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu composed “Kū Haʻaheo E Kuʻu Hawaiʻi” on September 25, 2007, for her students at the former Hālau Lōkahi Public Charter School. The mele became an anthem, uniting generations of aloha ʻāina around the world. Kumu Hina recalls first seeing the song used at Maunakea in 2014, when kiaʻi opposing the Thirty-Meter Telescope project successfully halted the groundbreaking of the project. The 2019 music video for the mele, produced by ʻŌiwi TV, was inspired by the Maunakea protest movement and evokes the spirit of the iconic 1985 song “We Are The World.” Executive produced by Kanaeokana, the video brings together some of Hawai‘i’s most notable artists and composers. The video beautifully captures the emotion and resilience of the lāhui, showcasing their unwavering strength and deep connection to their nation. The closing line of the song sings, “No ku’u lahui e hā’awi pau a i ola mau.” “For my nation, I give my all so that our legacy lives on.”
Kim Coco Iwamoto is a politician. Interview by Jasmine Reiko Healy
Puana
play by ka papahana hana keaka hawai‘i (2024)
When I was hired in the Department of Theatre and Dance through Chancellor Hinshaw’s strategic hiring initiative to place Native Hawaiian scholars in departments across the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa campus, I was charged with the task of building the Hawaiian Theatre Program within the department. Puana, our production which premiered at the Kennedy Theatre in the fall of 2024, exemplifies the growth and impact of this program. The production was an artistic collaboration between our program and Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian language, which consisted of kumu, current haumāna, and recent graduates from both our programs. Puana featured original mele compositions that transported us in time. We also have original designs by two haumāna from the Hawaiian MFA program, who used the designs for their thesis projects.
Institutionalizing the study and practice of Hana Keaka ensures the regular staging of Hawaiian-medium productions for our community and provides students the opportunity to train in traditional and contemporary Hawaiian performance forms and participate in original Hana Keaka that reflect and honor the language, traditions, history, and values of Kānaka Maoli. With each production we expand our abilities and elevate the pillars of our artform: mo‘olelo (story, history, narratives), kū‘auhau (ancestral connections), ‘ōlelo (language), and hana no‘eau (artistry). Puana is another link in the legacy that we are building.
Tammy Hailiʻōpua Baker is a playwright, director, scholar, and educator.
Interview by Eunica Escalante
Actors Ka‘ula Krug and Joshua “Baba” Kamoani‘ala Tavares. Image by Hezekiah Kapua‘ala.
Nanea Lum on Madelyn Biven & Alec Singer
Drew Kahu‘āina Broderick on Paradise Cove
Brandy Nālani McDougall on Joy Lehuanani Enomoto
We Were Ward (2017). Courtesy of the artists.
Floating on Your Grave , (2019). Image courtesy of Alec Singer.
Last Coral Standing (2013). Courtesy of the artist.
for all twenty-five artworks, visit fluxhawaii.com
Mahinapoepoe Paishon on Kealopiko
The Coming of the Gods (2009). Image by Chris Rohrer.
Moananuiākea design (2024). Courtesy of the artist.
LIMINAL (ADJ.) LIM·I·NAL
1: OF, RELATING TO, OR SITUATED AT A SENSORY THRESHOLD : BARELY PERCEPTIBLE OR CAPABLE OF ELICITING A RESPONSE, 2: OF, RELATING TO, OR BEING AN INTERMEDIATE STATE, PHASE, OR CONDITION
[Un] Place Sense of
Vincent Bercasio Ala Moana. 2024
Lala Myers Waianae. 2023
Ryan Lake Mililani, 2024
Vincent Bercasio Waiawa Rail Station, 2024
Harold Calventas Heeia Elementary, 2023
Harold Calventas Kapolei, 2024
Vincent Bercasio Windward Mall, 2024
Atis Puampai Pearlridge, 2024
Nehu Evans Ala Moana. 2023
Gento Fujiki Hawaii Kai, 2023
Eric Ordorica Ward, 2021
Alaina Degray Alakea St., 2023
Vincent Bercasio Waiawa Rail Station, 2024
Taylor Niimoto McCully, 2024
Camden Ramirez Ewa Beach, 2023
Taylor Niimoto Pālolo, 2022
FLUX _ FEATURE
TEXT BY
ARCHIVAL IMAGES FROM
THE JAPANESE AMERICAN ARTIST, RENOWNED FOR MERGING EASTERN AND WESTERN INFLUENCES, HAD ONCE ENVISIONED REVITALIZING ONE OF HAWAI‘I’S MOST SACRED SITES — A DREAM PROJECT THAT ULTIMATELY WAS NEVER REALIZED.
Kūkaniloko and Noguchi Noguchi and Kūkaniloko
_ PERRY ARRASMITH
_ ISAMU NOGUCHI FOUNDATION AND GARDEN MUSEUM
IF IT WAS FOR BETTER OR WORSE, DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK.
In 1976, American sculptor Isamu Noguchi met Hawaiʻi patron of the arts Paul Yamanaka and architect Gus Ishikawa at Pearl City Tavern. The 72-year-old Noguchi, already considered a master for his work in landscape architecture and abstract sculptures, had been introduced to Yamanaka by fellow artist Jean Charlot; the two men were brought together after Noguchi shared with Charlot, a French expatriate muralist who had been living on O‘ahu for over two decades, his desire to know “the real meaning of Hawai‘i.”
Noguchi’s modest request prompted Yamanaka to take him to Kūkaniloko, a monument of birthstones considered by Native Hawaiians to be the geographical and spiritual center of O‘ahu, with a sacred connection to other important sites across Hawai‘i and the Pacific. “It was held to be a most distinguished honor to be born at Kukanikoko,” noted a historian in 1903. “Queens in expectation of motherhood were accustomed to go to Kukaniloko in advance that by undergoing the pain of labor in that place they might confer on their offspring this inestimable boon.”
However, by the ’70s, the general public were unaware of its stately legacy. Kūkaniloko was just a quiet site among sprawling pineapple fields on the outskirts of the agricultural town of Wahiawa in central O‘ahu. At the time, the area’s priorities were dominated by the plantation industry and the money flowing from the nearby Schofield Barracks Army Installation. Yet, even among the changes Wahiawa experienced, the need to perpetuate the birthstones’ significance continued for those who remembered Kūkaniloko’s legacy. Through the 1920s, during its territorial period of Hawai‘i character-
ized by cultural repression, the nonprofit organization Daughters of Hawai‘i, a hui of women who maintain two royal palaces, took great pains to protect Kūkaniloko also. While regular care for the site faded, it was not forgotten — in 1973, three years before Noguchi would lay his eyes on nā pōhaku, or the stones, Kūkaniloko was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
By 1975, members of the Wahiawa Hawaiian Civic Club, most notably Hiram Diamond, desired to revitalize the site to enhance its historical significance for Native Hawaiians and the rest of the island’s multiethnic population. Diamond convened a meeting on the topic at the Wahiawa Public Library with attendees from legislators like State Representative and Chair of the House Committee on Culture and the Arts Richard Ho and Hawaiian studies experts including Charles W. Kenn, John Dominis Holt, and Abraham Pi‘ianai‘a. Among this fledgling restoration committee was Yamanaka, who in 1973 moved three boulders from an outcropping in a pineapple field near Kūkaniloko to Queen Kapi‘olani Rose Garden, a magisterial garden in Waikīkī he maintained as its curator. In the process of looking for stones to guard the garden, Yamanaka came to believe it wasn’t possible to move the site’s birthstones and embedded outcroppings themselves, as they had “too much mana.”
For his part, Noguchi was thoroughly impressed when he visited Kūkaniloko in 1976. “These stones I consider sacred and I believe are an important heirloom from Hawaii’s past,” he wrote in a letter to the editor of the Hawai‘i Observer in 1977. “Paul Yamanaka took me there and suggested that something should be done to save this important historical spot from the encroachment of the pineapples.”
The same year of Noguchi visited the site, The Advertiser columnist Sammy Amalu called for the restoration of Kūkaniloko, writing that Yamanaka told
him Noguchi “praised the contours and forms of the rocks and said they were every bit as wonderful as anything ever carved by the hand of man.” To a figure like Amalu, who was a proponent for Kūkaniloko’s protection, the words were gratifying at a time when the stones were “forgotten by the Hawaiian themselves.” Amalu imagined a plan “established not as a tourist attraction but rather as a shrine to the native people of Hawaii — and to the ancient Alii who were born there.”
Might Noguchi, the great mid-century sculptor, be the one to use his artistry to revive its legacy, giving Kukaniloko the recognition it has long been owed?
With ties to both the United States and Japan, Noguchi saw Hawai‘i as a meeting place between the East and the West. Born on November 17, 1904 in California and raised in Japan, Noguchi would go on to become one of the 20th century’s most innovative and prolific artists, seamlessly moving between a range of disciplines. He was well known for his distinctive Akari lamps, Japanese paper lanterns imbued with a modernist sensibility that displayed his evolving belief in marrying art with function, as well as his large-scale art installations like California Scenario in Costa Mesa and Sunken Garden at Fosun Plaza in New York City, both of which nimbly incorporate monumental rocks into its landscape design and are still publicly accessible. Through much of his career, Noguchi frequently stopped in Hawai‘i while travelling between Japan and the United States.
As an artist, Noguchi first stayed in Hawai‘i in 1940 on a commission with the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, which resulted in the production of a wooden sculpture titled Spear Fisherman. Noguchi returned in 1976 for two public art commissions of which one was completed: the public sculpture for the City and County of Honolulu,
“Kukaniloko! For gods’ sake, let’s do something rational and realistic about it. It is a great treasure of Hawaii — neglected, ignored, desecrated.” — John Dominis Holt, 1981
Noguchi, model of Sacred Rocks of Kukaniloko, bronze, 1976. The Noguchi Museum Archives, 12331.
Isamu
Kūkaniloko, 2019. Image by Michelle Mishina.
Letter to Isamu Noguchi from David Hagino, October 26, 1987. The Noguchi Museum Archives, MS_PROJ_220_008. Courtesy of the Isamu
Foundation and Garden Museum Archives.
Noguchi
known as Sky Gate, which still stands at Honolulu’s Civic Center. Completed in 1977, the pair of towering abstract steel arches cast shifting shadows throughout the day. Sky Gate, wrote biographer Dore Ashton, emerged as “another way of addressing the issue of cosmos, and one that has the local intonation of a place Noguchi saw as halfway between his two traditions.”
But the Hawai‘i project that seemed to most captivate — and ultimately elude — Noguchi was to build a fortress for the stones of Kūkaniloko. He conceptualized an enclosure of grass berms with undulating heights that would isolate whoever went into the enclosure from any consciousness of the pineapple fields or cars parked in the nearby lot, bringing full focus on the stones. No substantial funds would be required, Noguchi claimed, saying that “only the good will and willingness of people plus the use of bulldozers which I understand the pineapple people could easily supply themselves in the off season.” According to Ashton, Noguchi “pressed the project upon anyone he thought could bring it to fruition.”
All he needed was political support to realize his vision. And in the 1980s, Noguchi’s designs found new supporters in David Hagino and Gerald Hagino, two Hawai‘i-born brothers who were also state legislators. David, in particular, had a long-standing fascination with Hawai‘i’s art scene, acquainted with artists like Hilo sculptor Sean Browne, a Native Hawaiian protégé of Noguchi’s. The Haginos also had a personal connection to Kūkaniloko, having grown up in Central O‘ahu, and advocated for the purchase of the site. David, whose career in politics was framed by the political movement Palaka Power, a philosophy that aspired to make Hawai‘i a model of progressive labor relations and empower the working class, wanted to help achieve Noguchi’s vision while implementing reparative justice for the long-marginalized Native Hawaiian community. More than any figure besides Noguchi, he played a major role in guiding the project.
At the same time, the now-octogenarian Noguchi was in failing health. Browne was the only one who carried a critical understanding of Noguchi’s vision for the site, and moves were made to begin establishing Browne as the natural successor to implement Noguchi’s vision. “I do believe that Sean will be excellent as intermediary for effectuating something good,” Noguchi wrote David on June 15, 1987. Noguchi met with Browne a final time after Thanksgiving 1988. Within a month, Noguchi was dead.
In 1989, William M. Paty, director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, reported that the State of Hawai‘i had made an offer to the Hawaiian Trust Company for land including Kūkaniloko, but negotiations were slow. As a result, DLNR considered using eminent domain, and David soon urged the State to acquire 15 acres surrounding the site. In January 1990, DLNR informed the Hagino brothers that they could obtain five acres, with the Del Monte Corporation opposing the acquisition of any more land. The next month, DLNR seized five acres through condemnation to “protect the integrity of the birthstone site” and build a monument with a parking area. The Hawaiian Trust Company countered, offering a smaller disruption to Del Monte’s fields, and by July 1991, the State had acquired a five-acre site for Kūkaniloko.
While the State finalized proceedings to acquire the land, David turned to Isamu Noguchi Foundation’s executive director Shoji Sadao with the good news. “It has taken some time but the State is finally about to acquire the Kūkaniloko site,” he wrote.
David himself had a bright plan for the site’s future. If he could obtain a letter of support from the Noguchi Foundation for Noguchi’s original proposal, he wrote, he could get a similar letter of support from other entities such as the Wahiawa Hawaiian Civic Club. The Civic Club was particularly important, noted Hagino, because “the birth stones are in Wahiawa and the Club has served as official caretakers for the site.” In the meantime, David would work to secure the neces-
sary funds for construction. By December, Sadao reported that the Foundation’s Board of Directors unanimously approved Noguchi’s design as a gift to the State of Hawai‘i.
By February 1992, the deed of transfer was in Hagino’s possession. Both the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Board of Land and Natural Resources voted in favor of Noguchi’s design over the following year. When OHA offered their support in 1993, the agency noted that the site, through Noguchi’s vision, was to stay a wahi kapu, or sacred space, and that the person overseeing the execution of Noguchi’s design, furthermore, needed to be a Native Hawaiian. David was enthused. “At long last,” he wrote, “the State has finally adopted Isamu Noguchi’s design for the Kūkaniloko Birthstones.” Then, soon after, an unexpected setback: DLNR director Keith Ahue pumped the brakes. He was concerned about the lack of resources, which he shared with David. There was likely not enough land. There was not enough funding. There was no consensus. Noguchi’s dream for Kūkaniloko risked being shelved once again.
More than a decade passed with Noguchi’s aspirations for Kūkaniloko in limbo. By 1994, the Haginos were no longer in the legislature, meaning the project lost its two primary backers. Meanwhile, an emerging generation of leadership at the Wahiawā Hawaiian Civic Club, which did not appear as enamored with Noguchi’s design, were generating new and necessary conversations about the historical significance of Kūkaniloko. A resolution to support Noguchi’s design also failed at the 1997 Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs Convention in San Diego, California. Such conversations invited reflection on Noguchi’s 1970s vision. Did such a concept, after all, align with Native Hawaiian cosmology?
Funding for Kūkaniloko’s formation also never came. With no staff
available to steward the site, the State Parks Division reached a curatorship agreement with the Wahiawā Hawaiian Civic Club and the Friends of Kūkaniloko in 1997, and Native Hawaiian residents of the community like Tom Lenchanko took on foundational roles in the site’s protection. “Most important is we’re trying to preserve [the stones] for the future,” Lenchanko explained to the Star Bulletin in October 1998. “To make everybody aware what is here in Wahiawa, and how sacred this place is.”
In 1999, the Hawai‘i State Legislature passed a resolution to request a feasibility study for the creation of a cultural tourism site. A community meeting held on November 3, 1999 at the Wahiawa Public Library — attended by members of the community’s Hawaiian Civic Club and the Friends of Kūkaniloko alongside members of the Whitmore Village Association, the DLNR, the Rotary club, a State Representative, and Gerald Hagino, now employed by Del Monte — made it clear that no tangible support for Noguchi’s proposal would be forthcoming. Some raised issues about how Noguchi’s proposition of a raised earthen berm could create visitation, security, and maintenance issues, while others, armed with burgeoning knowledge about the site’s ancient astronomical practices, worried about the effects the design would have on significant view corridors. The
A birthing stone at Kūkaniloko. Image by Michelle Mishina
general consensus was that the design had artistic merit and was well-intentioned but also constituted a form of erasure. According to a report submitted by DLNR to the State legislature, the ultimate evaluation was that it “was not culturally appropriate to impose an art form on a cultural site that has its own history, form, and unique relationship to the landscape.” To the dissenters, Kūkaniloko was already in and of itself a work of art.
As the pineapple industry declined with the ceasing of Del Monte’s operations in the late 2000s, the State acquired more and more fallow agricultural lands. In 2018, OHA drafted a conceptual master plan for more than 500 acres of land under its stewardship surrounding Kūkaniloko. The plan, revised in 2021, made no mention of Noguchi’s design.
Noguchi’s passionate efforts, however, did help spark and maintain attention on the site when it was vulnerable. But, ironically enough, by not implementing his plan, the deeper significance of the place was preserved and discovered anew. As more Hawaiian knowledge and stewardship is supported around the birthstones, people are gaining a great appreciation of Kūkaniloko’s significance to O‘ahu.
Meanwhile, following centuries of deforestation due to plantation agriculture and colonization, the community has started a reforestation campaign
on the surrounding acreage. Where Noguchi was trying to preserve a past encroached on by pineapple fields, it is the pineapple that has faded since his death in 1988.
“I allowed myself to become involved in designing an earth mound for the sacred birth rocks of Kūkaniloko upon the instigation of Paul Yamanaka,” Noguchi wrote fondly in 1977, “and as my homage to the original people of Hawaii, some of whose descendants I had the pleasure of meeting. This was my way to make restitution for my disturbance that I might have caused to the spirits of Hawaii with the other work.”
Today, Noguchi is also gone, but Kūkaniloko remains. a
Sky Gate (1977) by Isamu Noguchi. Images by Chris Rohrer
“It
All Hands on Deck K
THE MAUI BROTHERS BEHIND KINGS GLASSING BRINGS HAWAI‘I’S HIGH SURFBOARD STANDARDS TO THE EAST COAST.
Before a surfboard becomes an object of aesthetic adoration or athletic envy — say, a finely shaped fish with a curved swallowtail and glossy aquamarine coloring — it appears unremarkable, as a white, buoyant polyurethane foam blank. A five-foot plus tabula rasa waiting for craftspeople to leave their mark which — with enough time, skill, patience, errors, and persistence — becomes their legible signature to the surfing world at large.
Eleven miles from the closest surf break, along an urban stretch of road and across from a sprawling graveyard, roughly one dozen of these untouched blanks are stored in the basement of Kings Surfboard Glassing in Queens, New York, where two brothers, Aaron and Drew Austin, shape, laminate, and hot coat surfboards each day, leaving their own imprint on board making while bringing Hawai‘i’s high standards to the East Coast.
Their venture started as a hobby in 2019, then ramped up during the pandemic in 2021 when work for their day jobs slowed (Aaron, 38, worked in commercial photography and Drew, 27, was a recent college graduate working in tech), and a general interest in surfing boomed.
IN THREE YEARS, THE AUSTINS ESTIMATE THEY’VE WORKED ON 500 BOARDS
“IT’S EXCEEDED OUR DREAMS,” AARON SAYS ABOUT THEIR BESPOKE BUSINESS.
Both had grown up surfing on Maui. In 2000, a family vacation to the island prompted their parents to uproot their lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, and undergo a move so abrupt — only their mother returned to pack up everyone’s belongings —
“Aaron’s friends thought he had died,” Drew remembers. Aaron was 13, their sister Natalie was 11, Drew was barely 2.
The Austins lived in Nāpili, just north of Lahaina, and their neighbors were the Payne family. Aaron, still a novice surfer, would go out in double overhead conditions with Dusty Payne, a rising local surf star, and “get absolutely destroyed.” Drew started surfing soon after he was able to swim.
As much as they loved the sport, surfboard making wasn’t their plan. In 2005, Aaron studied marketing at Hawai‘i Pacific
TEXT BY IMAGES BY _ ALEXIS CHEUNG _ DESMOND CENTRO
University on O‘ahu and, in 2011, studio photography at Spéos, a photography school in Paris, which eventually led to digital production work. In 2016, Drew moved to Santa Barbara and majored in computer science at Westmont College. When they both relocated to New York City — Aaron in 2013, Drew in 2021 — they would surf at Rockaway Beach, Queens, on weekends or whenever an unmissable hurricane swell would pass through.
Aaron became more interested in board making in part “because I had to in order to do better in the waves and surf year-round.”
Unlike Hawai‘i, swell conditions are more inconsistent on the East Coast and even the thickness of a wetsuit changes the board required. Aaron started shadowing New York and Hawai‘i-based shapers and laminators who showed him the basics. He found a studio to start the business in earnest in 2021. Drew, who was then bouncing between New York and California, asked if he could start sanding.
Around the same time, Chris Gentile, owner and founder of Pilgrim Surf and Supply in Williamsburg, was toying with the idea of starting a surfboard shaping
“I DON’T THINK THERE’S A TEAM QUITE LIKE ME AND AARON,” SAYS DREW OF WORKING WITH HIS BROTHER. “BECAUSE WE’RE SO CLOSE, WE CAN HOLD EACH OTHER TO A DIFFERENT LEVEL OF ACCOUNTABILITY,” ADDS AARON. “AT THE END OF THE DAY, THAT’S REALLY OUR ONLY GOAL: TO BUILD THE BEST SURFBOARDS WE POSSIBLY CAN.”
residency where luminary makers from around the world — shapers like Venturadwelling Rachel Lord and laminators like Biarritz-based Fantastic Acid — could interact with customers and build them custom boards. Only he was missing a crucial element: city-based glassers and sanders. While others were in close proximity in New Jersey, Long Island, and Rhode Island, Kings had cornered a local niche which impressed Gentile and made his residency concept more logistically feasible.
“If you need a clear, sanded board there are a variety of shops in our vicinity that
are much cheaper,” says Gentile. Surfers come to Pilgrim for the singular caliber of the surfboards, and Gentile turns to makers like Kings Glassing “because they really specialize in color work and an artisanal level of craftsmanship.”
The brothers have discrete roles: Drew shapes and sands; Aaron laminates and hot coats. Unlike most lamination shops, Kings double sands each board: the first time after the hot coat — a clear coat of resin that seals in the lamination or colorwork that’s been applied over fiberglass cloth that’s been fitted to the freshly shaped blank — and the second time after a thinner gloss is applied before it’s polished. It’s a laborious, time-consuming approach but worth the effort. “It improves the life of the board,” Aaron explains.
The entire craft is learned through trial and error, observation and apprenticeship. “It’s really like a folk tradition,” Gentile says. While a shaper has their signature — say, a distinctive raised-edge bottom or a prominently placed logo — a laminator and sander should have an invisible hand. The colors, which Aaron painstakingly mixes manually, should be to the exact specification of the client and the resin should be smooth to the touch. Their lasting mark is the absence of imperfection. When it came to naming their nascent business, Aaron wanted a regal moniker like Goddess, but “my wife shot that down because we’re not women.” A friend suggested Kings Glassing, which proved felicitous: Their first shop was in Kings County, Brooklyn, and, while not
MODERN SURFBOARDS EVOLVED FROM WOODEN DESIGNS TO STYROFOAM AND FIBERGLASS IN THE LATE 1940S, WITH TODAY’S OPTIONS SPANNING FROM MASS-PRODUCED SOFT TOPS TO CUSTOM HAND-SHAPED BOARDS, LIKE AT KINGS GLASSING
intentionally chosen for this reason, harkens back to the royal roots of the sport.
Ali‘i from Kamehameha the Great and King David Kalākaua to Queen Lydia Lili‘uokalani and Princess Victoria Ka‘iulani all surfed. Three Hawaiian princes attending boarding school in California introduced surfing to Santa Cruz in 1885. In their era, surfboards were made of a single piece of carved wood, sans fins. Under the kapu system, royalty used olo: the largest surfboards made of lighter, more buoyant wood and with a thicker, more buoyant design. Commoners surfed less buoyant, thinner alaia, or ‘ōnini boards.
After annexation in 1898, surfing became marketed as the Hawaiian “sport of kings.” Experienced Kānaka Maoli watermen like Olympian Duke Kahanamoku and George Freeth, a lifeguard and surfer featured in a Waikīkī surfing essay by novelist Jack London, further popularized the pastime in the early 1900s. Innovations in materials in the late 1940s started an industry-wide transition of making boards out of balsa wood to styrofoam, fiberglass, and resin. Today, surfboard making ranges from mass machine-produced soft tops to custom hand-shaped surfboards, like at Kings Glassing.
Such attention to detail means the business margins are low. “This wasn’t a getrich-quick scheme,” says Aaron since they eschew using a CNC machine, a computerized appliance specifically designed to shape surfboards. Aaron still does commercial photography and Drew bartends to help pay the bills. A Hurley sponsorship provides them with a contract and modest but guaranteed cash flow. While the Austins’ immediate goal is to make surfboard-making their full-time gig, along with expanding their branded merch and building a public-facing showroom in their
studio, they have larger aspirations that consider the history and legacy of the craft in Hawai‘i.
“A good board is the basis of the surf community,” as Drew sees it. The better your shaper, the better your board and potentially surfing performance, which could be another reason as to why Hawai‘i produces so many champions: the best shapers and glassers hail from the islands too.
In the Kings Glassing shaping room, there’s an image of Ben Aipa, the legendary O‘ahu surfer and shaper who passed
“SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO TELL EACH OTHER BAD NEWS ABOUT A BOARD,” SAYS AARON WHEN QUALITY ISN’T UP TO SNUFF. “IT’S EASIER TO TELL YOUR BROTHER THAN SOMEONE ELSE.”
away in 2021, with his head glancing down in concentration as he hand saws a rail. The image is placed at such a height that Aipa seems to oversee not only the board, but also the Austin brothers with a watchful, knowing eye. “The craftsmanship in Hawai‘i has forever and always will be extremely high,” says Drew. “Our goal is to continue to perpetuate that standard here.” a
One Fine Day in Little Syria
Dinner was served on a bed of banana leaves. Fluffy mounds of white rice serpentined down the center, flanked by traditional Filipino fare: golden crisp lumpia; chicken inasal, a variant of the chicken dish lechon manok; tender pork belly adobo; and delicately sour daing na bangus, milkfish marinated in vinegar and fried. Not a plate nor a utensil was in sight. Instead, guests ate with their hands, plucking bits of food between sips of wine.
The feast served kamayan-style (Tagalog for “eating with one’s hands”) is among Nadia Agsen’s favorite dinners to cook under her New York supper club, Pica Pica. Since the club’s inception in 2022, the 30-year-old chef has produced multicourse meals with inspired interpretations of her childhood favorites like duck simmered in tart adobo marinade or chicken wings à la Jollibee Chickenjoy, seasoned with fivespice and lathered in gravy.
Though not all of her dinners are kamayan, the uniting thread is a sense of communion. Guests dine together at a communal table, strangers growing in propinquity over family-style courses. It’s an approach drawn from Agsen’s own Palestinian-Filipino upbringing, where she
FILMMAKER-TURNED-CHEF NADIA AGSEN CREATED THE NEW YORK SUPPER CLUB PICA PICA, WHERE MULTICOURSE PANASIAN DISHES ARE SERVED KAMAYANSTYLE (TAGALOG FOR “EATING WITH ONE’S HANDS”).
witnessed language and cultural barriers transcended in the kitchen, saying, “It’s like [my grandmothers] had this deep connection and admiration for each other without even knowing how to speak each other’s language.”
At 8 years old, Agsen and her family moved from Seattle to Hawaiʻi. No longer within proximity of her grandmothers’ cooking, Agsen took a keener interest in her family’s cuisine. Through her mother, she learned to cook the meals that her maternal grandmother served at her restaurant in the Philippines and the Palestinian recipes her paternal grandmother taught her mother.
Her Hawaiʻi upbringing, too, began to color her palate. Like any good local kid, she grew up on poke bowls and mixed plate lunches. Today, her dinners are characterized by a Pan-Asian mix of flavors
EUNICA ESCALANTE
DESMOND CENTRO
influenced by her Filipino heritage and formative years in the islands. Though she admits that she is not as comfortable cooking Palestinian dishes as she would like, there is a library of recipe cards that her Teta, as she lovingly calls her paternal grandmother, handed down to her mother. “It’s something that I want to experiment with and expand on learning more,” she says.
In inviting guests to partake in a meal with perfect strangers, Agsen is looking to curate that same sense of kinship, particularly after how isolating the pandemic was for New Yorkers. As they eat from the same mound of rice or pick apart a whole fish together, Agsen hopes that the intimacy begets meaningful conversation and authentic connections. “You’re disarmed when you’re doing something you
practice everyday,” she says. “And obviously, we all have to eat.”
Here, Agsen takes us on a tour of Brooklyn’s Little Syria. The following are edited excerpts from our interview about the neighborhood people and places who most nourish her creativity.
My job is super physical and taxing, whatever the opposite of glamorous is. So, I like to have slow mornings on my days off. I’ll probably head down to Salter House around lunchtime. They’re family-owned and they have so many sweet things there. Sometimes I’ll stop by Woolyn to buy the yarn that I knit with — it’s just another way for me to exercise movement with my hands outside of my work. I’ll take whatever knitting project I have with me to
Salter House, get a big pot of a local tea they specialize in, and just hang out there. They’re also a home shop, so if I have dinnerware I need to restock on or just looking for cute decor for the house, I’ll get it there. I recently bought some quilted napkins from their collaboration with O Angel, a Korean homeware brand by the art studio 92% Angel. I use them as coasters for the Salter House teas I have at home.
picture this
Connected to Salter House is a really beautiful place called Picture Room. They host an array of beautiful art in so many mediums. But I really love their photography pieces. I originally moved to New York to be in production. From middle school on, I studied photography and videography. Back in Honolulu, a friend and I
ON HER OFF DAYS, AGSEN OPTS FOR SLOW MORNINGS BROWSING WOOLYN FOR KNITTING YARN AND HOUSE GOODS FROM SALTER HOUSE
“It’s like my grandmothers had this deep connection and admiration for each other without even knowing how to speak each other’s language.”
nadia agsen, chef
had a tiny production company where we covered chefs and their practice. That was my first crossover between food and film.
With my work at Pica Pica, I look at my plates in colors. I make sure I have a diverse array. If I see a photo I really like at Picture Room, I might take a picture of it, then use it as an idea for my next plate. But the most recent work that has influenced me is actually a series of lamps by Ana Louisa Corrigan. The collection was an ode to her mother who had passed away. The way that she was able to pull nostalgia into creating a lamp and a physical space was so beautiful. It helped me think about my practice and how to pull specific moments with my mom and grandmothers and how to have that translate onto a plate.
I also felt inspired by her being so vulnerable with her mom. I recently did a mutual aid event for Palestine at the People’s Forum in Midtown. I don’t cook Palestinian food for the public for vulnerability reasons. Since my mom is the first person who trained me in the kitchen, I’m more familiar with Filipino food. I’ve definitely had hard discussions and associations with being Palestinian. But seeing Corrigan be vulnerable with her story gave me the courage to say, “It’s okay, I can be vulnerable and cook Palestinian food,” and to lean into the uncomfortable spaces in my practice.
a historic outpost
Sahadi’s is a Lebanese grocery store that first opened in 1895, back when Little Syria was originally in Lower Manhattan. When they began building the World Trade Center, they wiped the entire neighborhood out. The community moved to South Brooklyn and one of the shops was Sahadi’s.
It’s where I get all my spices from, whether for work or for my personal kitchen. They sell spices in bulk imported from the Middle East, specifically Lebanon. For Pica Pica, I mainly cook Filipino dishes, since it’s the recipes I’m most familiar with. But when I do cook Palestinian food at home, I go to Sahadi’s to get all the ingredients. I always feel like I need to have baharat, which is Arabic five spice. At Sahadi’s, I’ll make my own blend by buying all of the separate spices: paprika, black pepper, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, clove, cardamom, star anise and nutmeg. I’ll also buy a quick snack, usually this delicious Palestinian-Lebanese-Syrian pastry called fatayer.
comfort
foods
At Damascus Bread and Pastry, there’s this old Baba who is there all day, Monday through Sunday. They have the most delicious pistachio bird’s nest. It’s a flaky pastry, dipped in syrup and topped with crumbly
AGSEN CONNECTS WITH HER PALESTINIAN ROOTS THROUGH CUISINE. SAHADI’S GROCERY STORE IS HER GO-TO FOR SPICES, WHILE SHE FAVORS THE SYRIAN DAMASCUS BREAD AND PASTRY AND YEMEN CAFE FOR THEIR AMBIANCE.
pistachios. They also sell their own bread, lavash, and saj — just a bunch of goods that you can take home.
Across Damascus is Yemen Cafe. It’s probably my favorite place to get a really good Arabic meal. I didn’t grow up having Yemeni food, but the technique they cook with really reminds me of Palestinian food. It’s all very homey to me. On my days off,
I like to have nostalgic, comforting food because I’m usually tired or emotionally exhausted. There’s a chicken dish that they stew, similar to the Moroccan dish tagine. It’s a lot of turmeric and a lot of spices. Then there’s this lamb dish, a full shank, that they cook for six hours and it just falls off the bone. But what I really love is that they serve all of their meals
AGSEN MARRIES HER FILMMAKING INSTINCTS WITH HER CULINARY PRACTICE BY FOCUSING ON COLOR, A KEY ELEMENT THAT DRAWS HER TO KITCHENWARE SHOP PORTA.
It’s nice in there because it’s usually just uncles and aunties, families having a nice little sit down. It’s comforting to be around that for me. There’s something about being surrounded by Filipino aunties or Arab aunties and uncles that make me feel safe and comforted.
for the home
Almost all of Porta’s products are sourced from Italy. They have the most beautiful
table linens, dinnerware, candelabras — anything you can think of for a kitchen or dining space, they have. Because everything is ceramic from Italy, it’s just so beautiful.There’s this beautiful handpainted fish plate that, no matter the occasion, I’m using. I also have these cute radicchio rosa salt and pepper shakers that my mother bought us for a housewarming gift.
The owner has such a specific eye. He handpicks a lot of these things from small artisans in Italy. He is so fantastic with colors. I’m a really color-driven person. Any with a little soup broth and a tiny serving of jalapeno relish. The jalapeno relish reminds me of what my Teta used to cook.
filmmaker will tell you they stick to a color palette, whether it’s a hue of color grading while they’re editing or the physical colors they use in costuming and on set. That definitely informs my practice. I always make sure my plates have a pop of color or different colors. It’s an artistic drive to have the same love of palette that I had as a photographer and videographer now that I’m a chef. a
Nadia’s Guide to Little Syria
All located in Brooklyn, New York
Woolyn
Salter House
Damascus Bread and Pastry
Porta
Sahadi’s
NAZ KAWAKAMI IS A BROOKLYN-BASED WRITER AND EDITORIN-CHIEF OF THE SKATE MAGAZINE MONSTER CHILDREN
Talking Story
FIVE YEARS SINCE UPROOTING HIMSELF FROM O‘AHU, THE OUTSPOKEN
HAWAIIAN EDITOR OF MONSTER CHILDREN, UNPACKS NYC’S INFLUENCE ON HIS POV, HIS PARTY-THROWING SECRETS, AND UNVARNISHED THOUGHTS ON ISLAND FILMMAKING.
TEXT BY IMAGES BY _ JACK TRUESDALE _ BRANDYN LIU
The first time I saw Naz Kawakami was in the indie film Every Day in Kaimukī where he stars as its main character also named Naz Kawakami. The second time was in person, sitting across from each other on a mid-November morning in the Kaimukī café beneath what used to be his and his character’s former apartment. The 30-year-old writer and editor had bedhead and scruff and wore a tattered black T-shirt and black corduroy shirt with a lapel button that said “kiss me.”
He was back in Honolulu from his base in Brooklyn for just a few days, staging an art show in Chinatown on local skate culture. Like the caustic version of himself he portrays in Every Day in Kaimukī, an autofictive narrative that blurs autobiography with fiction, Kawakami also left O‘ahu for New York in 2021 to escape what he sees as the crushing confines of island life. Within two years, the real Kawakami (who has a greater deal of work ethic than his on-screen persona) worked his way from freelance journalist reporting for NPR, Insider, Creem, and Vice to the editor-in-chief of Monster Children, where he shepherds the good word on skating, bands, and parties.
The writer-director Alika Tengan of Every Day in Kaimukī told me how he
To spoil the story, both Naz’s get off the rock. But, the real life Naz still kept his opinions about art made in Hawai‘i, gripes that, as he’d put it, are in the interest of wanting to see better art. As he writes of himself online, “I am Hawaiian and Japanese but I look like neither of those things and my confused sense of identity bothers me very much.” He is not confused, however, about his wishes for Hawaiian films. “So few opportunities are given to Hawaiians to make films that they feel they have to say everything [about the] Hawaiian [experience],” he told me. “Every film comes out feeling like a lecture.” This interview, edited and condensed for clarity from two conversations, ranges from his local film critiques to how to throw a party. _ NAZ
came up with the story: He found his “most interesting friend,” asked him for his life story with a tape recorder running, wrote a script with him, and shot the film with cinematographer Chapin Hall. The friend, of course, was Naz Kawakami, Honolulu born and raised. The film, about a young prickish late-night radio DJ who’s trying to muster leaving Kaimukī for New York, ran at Sundance in 2022 and was nominated for the Innovator Award.
What do you think of the films that have come out of Hawai‘i, and how’s that changing?
I strongly believe the reason that Hawaiian film has not been very good in the past, including, like, Disney shit — the reason it’s been very corny is because so few opportunities are given to actual Hawaiians to make films that when they do, they’re like, “Oh, I need to say everything I’ve ever experienced,” instead of saying one thing really well. So every film comes out feeling like a lecture. Like, say your one thing, and then make the next one and say something else. Don’t try to jam hundreds of years of historical trauma down someone’s throat who just walked into Hawai‘i International Film Festival for a short showcase or a quirky beach surf film. Like, how often in dayto-day conversation, are you like “1893”?
Some of these films I see, I’m like you may as well just talk to camera, you may as well just address us directly with a chalkboard. Someone that I think did it really well was — not for Hawai‘i, but for Maori history — Taika Waititi. His first short, Two Cars, One Night , he shows the squalor that they live in, and no character is like, “Oh, man, shucks, being Maori is really hard, isn’t it?” The viewer can make that connection. The viewer on their own might be stupid, but as a whole, we’re quite smart. So even though one person may give you a note that’s, like, “Why don’t you talk about the annexation?” Like, don’t. Because if you just show the aftermath, the effects of it, they’ll gather.
You think a development executive would say that?
Yes. People have said that to me. They’re like, “No, I want people to know the history.” And I’m like, “They’ll Google it later.” And also, it doesn’t matter with dates. All that matters is the effects. The event itself is almost insignificant compared to everything after it. If your script has any of the characters explaining to another the events of 1893 in it, it’s a fucking lecture.
Show how your characters are affected by it, and people will feel it. They’ll feel that something went wrong [in Hawaiian history]. They’ll feel that something is not right. Like everybody on that Maori reservation in [Waititi’s second feature] Boy was fucking poor, and you immediately ask yourself, why? And that’s all you need to do.
Do you feel free to say whatever you want because you’re not here [in Hawai‘i]?
Yes, in the past. I was very vocal about my opinions, good and bad, about Hawai‘i filmmaking. Until someone at HIFF pointed out to me that I had made nothing and had no right to be an asshole about it. So, when Alika asked if I wanted to make a movie with him, I was like, “Yeah, OK, let’s do it.” Let’s put my money where my mouth is.
KAWAKAMI IS WRITING A SCREENPLAY THAT’S “80 PERCENT FUN, 10 TO 20 PERCENT BUMMER” SET IN THE HONOLULU PUNK ROCK SCENE DURING THE LATE-AUGHTS.
capable of and more deserving than to just make films about being downtrodden and of our worst moments. We just keep making films about being figuratively “overthrown” and being criminals. And from what I can detect these films are about that and little else. I get really frustrated by that because there’s good and bad. We’re a complex people with a rich history and culture. We don’t need to focus all of our efforts on convincing people that we’re hurt, convincing viewers — and ourselves too. I think you can represent trauma with nuance. It fails us as a people to only dwell on those things. We need laughter with the tragedy. We’re good at that, so why is that not reflected in our stories?
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is, I think, a masterpiece. It’s one of my favorite books of all time, and it’s about slavery, but none of them are slaves. It’s after the fact, and none of them in the book are like, “Oh, boy, remember back when we were slaves?” No one wants a spoon in their face. They don’t want to be told a story without having to feel it, and you’re not going to feel names and dates and talking points. In Beloved, you feel the struggle of these people, you know their circumstances and, on your own, you come to the conclusion of why. That’s better storytelling. If you’re writing a story in Hawai‘i about Hawai‘i, and on the cast sheet, it’s the Queen, you’ve gone wrong. You’ve gone astray. Unless it’s like pre-Overthrow, great. But I don’t think it’ll do anyone any service to have reenactments.
It’s the pull between feeling you want to represent your people or home, and do it justice, while making something a wide range of people want to see.
These days, I just believe that Native Hawaiian filmmakers are capable of more, and that Native Hawaiian history and community deserves authenticity and subtlety more than ever. We are
The word you just used is “representation,” not “reenactment.” You want representation, not a crying reenactment of the worst thing that happened in Hawaiian history. If Beloved took place while they were slaves, that would be a horrible novel. I’ve argued about this in college classes. I’ve been on this shit for years.
Do you feel like anything does it right? Any movies or books you’ve encountered?
I don’t know if I’ve seen enough Hawai‘i stuff. I didn’t see the feature version yet, but Alika’s short Moloka‘i Bound, I thought was really good — it’s a vignette of a tragedy. They don’t ever talk about why the dad’s not supposed to be there. They don’t talk about why they’re in their circumstances. Because why would they? Who discusses that? The viewer can pick up on all of their history by them having this struggling conversation and their tone, their body language. It’s a minimalist representation, and because I, as a viewer, have to extract that information myself, it’s more impactful. I feel it. I remember it. I remember it now. I saw it years ago.
What is the story you’re working on?
It’s a film. I cannot think of a single fun Hawai‘i film. They’re all kind of downers. So my Hawai‘i film, it’s just, uh... fun. It’s like 80 percent fun, 10 to 20 percent bummer. There was a huge punk rock scene here when I was growing up [in the lateaughts]. So it’s about a 14-year-old kid who’s just in that scene. It takes place on Halloween night, one night only. And it’s just him trying to talk to girls, not get beaten up by bullies, and it ends up being very sad. It starts with his older brother getting back from having tried to kill himself. One of the lines in it that I think is so hilarious is someone being like, “Hey, sorry you tried to kill yourself.” And he’s like, “It’s okay.” It’s treated very mildly. Everyone that this older brother interacts with already knows what happened. It’s not taken very seriously because that’s usually how it is. And I didn’t want to just beat people over the head with, like, “Look how poor and sad these people are.” I want to have a little aspect of it, but not have the character be pitied. Everyone’s just like a normal guy. Sure, they’re goths, they’re sweating and walking around wearing all black in Hawai‘i, but they’re just normal people. A very unchallenging, fun movie.
IN THE INDIE FILM EVERY DAY IN KAIMUKĪ,KAWAKAMI PLAYS A VERSION OF HIMSELF. LIKE THE REAL-LIFE NAZ, HIS CHARACTER LEAVES HONOLULU FOR NEW YORK CITY. OPPOSITE, FILM IMAGES BY KAWAKAMI.
The story all takes place in town?
All over. I wanted to recreate all these clubs that I used to go to. Coffee Talk is in it. I played my first show there when I was 14 at like three in the afternoon. I had a mohawk.
Do you feel like that side of you was nurtured much here growing up?
Yeah. There was a heavy scene. Hundreds of people. Dozens of bands. If you were goth, you had a place to go. If you were a punk, you had a place to go. I tried to be punk, but I wasn’t very good at it. There was just so much happening. If you were an artist, there were places to go and meet other artists. Now it’s not so much like that. If, for some reason, someone in their twenties reads this interview, please put this in, even unprompted at the end: stop waiting for an invite, throw the party. You don’t need much. You literally just need a space and a sound system. People will bring their own fucking beer. If you tell people to go to this warehouse and you have a loud ass speaker and a fucking Spotify mix, you don’t need anything. Turn off the lights, you’re good.
I remember reading your Monster Children piece on how to throw an illegal warehouse party.
That gets thousands of clicks per month. So many people are interested. Just fucking do it.
Where would you do it in Honolulu?
Aupuni Space a lot. We did a whole bunch in Chinatown, just anywhere. If we saw a For Lease sign, we’d call and be like, “Can we lease it for a day for an art show?” Because they’re thinking wine and cheese, some paint on the walls, and they’d never come and attend. So we would scrounge together like 300 bucks, throw a sound system in there, one disco ball, and one spotlight you’re good. That’s all you need. You don’t need much to have a good time.
I’ve discovered that if you want to loosen up a party really quickly and make people weird, change how they think about their self image. The thing that unlocks people and parties? Fucking costumes, man. Throw a costume party or just have that shit lying around. I threw a party in New York in an expansive room. I just had a wig on the table or a mask over there. I’m not saying put it on, but put a beer in someone, turn the lights kind of low, and put on some music, everyone’s in costume. And it makes them do weird shit. It makes them get rid of their ego because they’re automatically something strange. It gets people talking more easily because there’s no ego barrier. It just breaks people wide open. My kind of stuff isn’t for anyone who was cool in high school or has a “K” on their Instagram page.
A what?
Like a 10K or 40K. You know, followers. Everything I do is for the weird kids. I thought I was pretty weird. And I went on this trip to Japan with these pros [skaters and surfers], and they were way weirder than me. I watched them and was like, that’s how you should be. Do you know what a pratfall is?
Yeah.
Just falling on purpose for a gag. They did that shit in Japan. They would be in the bar. And these are people you think of as really cool guys. They’ll be in the bar, and they’ll be like, I’ll be right back, and they’ll be holding a full beer, and they’ll fall on a full table of people and tear the whole table down for a gag, and then pretend to slip and fall back down. I’m like, “Holy shit, you guys are amazing.” So I’ve been really into that lately. Me and my friends have been really into pratfalls. We walked into this bar, this fancy French restaurant where it’s $20 a beer. We walked in and just immediately fell and ripped down a table down of hors d’oeuvres and cheeses. The diners were like, “Are you okay?” And then I slip again,
and I fall down. It’s just so fucking funny. Seeing these people who are dressed to the nines, like influencers, be so disgusted with me is so funny. All right, we’re getting way off…
What have you learned living in New York you might not have learned if you didn’t move?
An infinite amount of lessons. Everything from how to tell if someone is about to rob you to what natural wine is. From day one — really, from hour one — I was just getting my ass kicked by the city. It took a lot of time and trial and error to be comfortable with myself and the distance from everyone I know and my own choices for coming to New York.
But what about yourself, in so far as your relationship to Hawai‘i?
I know that I spent my whole life thinking that being a Hawaiian man, ethnically and having that as a cultural background, was the fucking lamest thing on the planet, and I resented it and didn’t engage with it when I was at home. Only since moving have I begun to feel pride in it and start to feel — not so much my otherness when I’m here, but my sense of self is much stronger here because in Hawai‘i it’s just how things are. In New York, I need to be really direct and practical and literal in my
engagement with Hawaiian culture, heritage, history. It’s not around me anymore, so I need to set aside time for it and learn it and commit myself to it which has been really rewarding actually.
Have you come to understand the reason why you resented it, as you say? What do you think is the deeper explanation for that feeling?
Yeah, I don’t know, my dad grew up in a time where speaking Pidgin and being Hawaiian meant that you were, like, stupid, and I remember my parents — I feel kind of bad calling them out on this actually — it’s not a call out though, it’s fine. One time they were like, “Don’t speak Pidgin.” I remember being really young and I made a joke and saying it in Pidgin, and they were like, “Don’t speak that way. Speak proper English.” It was like an academic and societal thing.They didn’t say this, but the sentiment was, “Don’t be that, be something else, be smart.” My dad was also in Hawaiian bands and he would take me to these live music places and every time I would go I’d be thinking to myself this is fucking not very punk rock, this sucks. (Laughs) I didn’t see the value in it because I just had this idea of what is valuable and what isn’t. Which is such a — and I hate to use this term — colonial way of thinking that anything Hawaiian was sort of negligible and
stupid than whatever is being imported from America or the West.
You’ve been editing Monster Children for a couple of years now. How’s that going?
Well, print is always doing good and it’s only going to get better.
A highly sarcastic and meta comment to make in this print magazine interview!
I’ll say I’m grateful to work at a place that’s down to be weird and have strong opinions about everything. I feel to survive in the media landscape people have started to loosen their opinions, especially in skating and music, which I work in. I think that’s why Monster Children has been around so long and readers respond to it because of the magazine’s independent voice. What I’ve observed is how Monster Children supports and highlights the people who are doing weird, cool shit, you know? If it’s a choice between covering someone who’s uncontroversially adored and someone doing something radical, we’ll usually go for the radical person because they’re innovative and we applaud the attempt. Even if it sounds quixotian, we’re a platform for the people who we feel will be cool tomorrow, even if they’re eating shit for right now. a
CONTENT CREATORS ANNA ARCHIBALD AND KEVIN SERAI ARE THE PAIR BEHIND CABAGGES WORLD , THEIR EXPLORATORY CULINARY PLATFORM FEATURING FAVORITE RECIPES, TRAVEL GUIDES, AND PERSONAL STORIES.
A Taste of Home
FOR TWO HOME COOKS-TURNED-CONTENT CREATORS, FOOD ISN’T JUST A BUSINESS. IT’S ALSO A WAY TO REMAIN CONNECTED TO THEIR HAWAI‘I ROOTS.
TEXT BY IMAGES BY
Anna Archibald and Kevin Serai never intended to start a business. But three years ago, in the early days of their life as a couple and sharing a mutual love of cooking, a casual post on TikTok wound up leading to a whole new career path. “When we started dating, we got into watching recipe videos,” says Archibald, 27, who previously worked as a graphic designer. “Cooking at home was something to do as a fun activity, and we wound up posting a few videos.”
One of those videos — of a mille-feuille nabe, a Japanese-style hot pot dish made with layers of cabbage and pork — went viral. “There was something about the way it looked that really made it pop,” she explains, describing the colorful ribbons of meat, vegetables, and mushrooms in a simmering dashi broth. But it was also relatively simple to prepare, and that combination — a recipe easy enough to make for anyone while being aesthetically worthy of social media posts — made it take off. The video wasn’t just about the food, though. “The way we filmed it was crude and casual, in our small Brooklyn kitchen,” adds Serai, 34, who had been working in marketing for brands like Saturdays NYC and Cool Hunting and producing
limited-run apparel for his label Waialae Sportswear. “It felt more like a peek into our lives, and we gave a little more of ourselves each time.”
Those initial glimpses into the life of Archibald and Serai, both born and raised on Oʻahu, were the start of Cabagges World, their food brand that defies easy categorization. It’s part blog, part visual diary, with a continually-updated volume of Japanese-inflected recipes (spicy cold noodles, uni carbonara, a baked sweet potato sundae) and a string of collaborations already under their belts (their latest is a chilled red wine called Last Summer Whisper, in partnership with the Los Angeles-based natural wine company Jumbo Time Wines). Currently, they have almost 900,000 Instagram followers but their website still has the lo-fi, relaxed sensibility of that first post on TikTok. “To us, we’re sort of defined through our followers and viewers, since they constantly tell us that Cabagges World is a space where they can connect with food in different ways,” explains Serai. “Our recipes tend to be straightforward and more approachable, so we’ve seen many entry points for connection, whether they’re using one of our recipes
JOHN WOGAN
KANA MOTOJIMA
as a bridge to their Japanese heritage, or sending one of our videos to a partner to say, ‘Hey, can you make this?’ We also see groups of friends that will make our food for a party.”
Serai also notices how their content seems to especially resonate with young people who might otherwise feel intimidated throwing a dinner party or having people over for a home-cooked meal. “We try to show them that cooking doesn’t have to be super ‘chef-y,’” he says. In other words, Cabagges World reveals to its followers that there is a middle ground between professional cooking and
throwing something into the microwave at home. The brand’s name itself (the correct spelling was already taken on TikTok) has grown to exemplify this humble ethos, referencing the commonly used vegetable in Asian cuisine embraced for being versatile, reliable, and cheap. “[The name] feels representative of the type of food we like to make,” Serai says, “which is all about making something special with the basic staples you have.”
While that spirit of “anyone can cook” is a big aspect that draws people into the couple’s world, it’s also their distinct point of view as Hawaiʻi creatives living in NYC
(specifically, in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn). Although Serai, who grew up in Kahala and attended ʻIolani School, and Archibald, a Mid-Pacific Institute graduate from Kāneʻohe, are both from Oʻahu, it wasn’t until a few years into living in New York that they met through mutual friends. Both are half-Japanese, and having a shared hometown and culture informs every aspect of their work. “Japanese food is a primary influence, but being from Hawaiʻi plays such a big part in our recipes, and many of our references come from that as well,” says Archibald. Serai adds that “you’ll see a
SINCE LAUNCHING IN 2022, THEY HAVE BOOKED A STRING OF COLLABORATIONS INCLUDING ONE WITH LOS ANGELES-BASED NATURAL WINE COMPANY JUMBO TIME WINES AND A SOLD-OUT ZINE-STYLE RECIPE BOOK RABU-RABU: CABAGGES
lot of local flavor scattered throughout our recipes,” which include garlic shrimp inspired by the food trucks on the North Shore, or a Zippy’s-style spaghetti infused with flavorful Hayashi cubes. By coming back to Honolulu twice a year (recently, they were home for a month over the winter holiday season) those ties to Hawaiʻi remain strong. Among the spots they regularly hit are Young’s Fish Market for beef stew, Sekiya’s for old school Japanese, Foodland for poke, and Liliha Bakery and Rainbow Drive-In for local comfort food. “Coming home resets us,” Serai says. “There’s nothing like chatting with aunties and uncles and feeling that unique warmth you don’t get anywhere else.”
Looking towards the future, the pair are planning to publish a proper
cookbook, in addition to the zine-style recipe book, Rabu-Rabu: Cabagges , they created last year with publisher Friends Edition (which quickly sold out on pre-order). They’ll also be adding more longform videos to their YouTube channel, which, for now, includes dreamy food-focused travel vlogs of a recent trip to Paris and their time at home on Oʻahu (next up: Japan). But you get the sense, when talking to them, that keeping things intimate and maintaining that close connection to their audience is always going to be central to what they do. And granted the production value of their videos and posts might be higher now than that first TikTok back in 2021, at the end of the day, the heart of their work remains simple: two people in love and who love to cook for each other. a
WHILE THE MONIKER INTENTIONALLY MISSPELLS CABBAGES (THE CORRECT SPELLING WAS ALREADY TAKEN ON TIKTOK), THE ORDINARY INGREDIENT IS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RELIABLE AND UNPRETENTIOUS CONTENT OF THEIR BRAND. SERAI SAYS THE TYPE OF FOOD THEY MAKE “IS ALL ABOUT MAKING SOMETHING SPECIAL WITH THE BASIC STAPLES YOU HAVE.”
“It’s exceeded our dreams.”
A.A.
“ I want curious visitors and people who ask how they can
give back. ” — Holly Ka‘iakapu
_ WEST KAUA‘I
Soul of the West
KNOWN FOR ITS UNYIELDING LOVE OF THE LAND, THE GARDEN ISLE’S LEEWARD SIDE SHOWCASES ITS RESILIENT ATTITUDE THROUGH AUTHENTIC ARTWORK, CONSERVATION INITIATIVES, AND UPCYCLING EFFORTS THAT HONOR ITS HERITAGE.
TEXT BY IMAGES BY
Rounding the southern bend westbound on Kaua‘i’s only highway, the rain-slicked hills of Kalaheo fall away to reveal an expanse of golden-brown fields and deep green valleys that stretch from ‘Ele‘ele, the unofficial gateway to the island’s leeward side, to the roadway’s terminus. From the illustrious rust-red dirt that paints the region from seaside to ridgeline to the sky blue water that pools along the shores of Polihale, this is the raw, unfolding landscape of Kaua‘i’s west side.
On Kaua‘i, the west side’s past runs like a deep breath through the minds and hearts of its people today. The steadfast history of this place is inseparable from its community, from the Native Hawaiians who prospered here long before European arrival to the sugarcane plantations that reshaped its landscape. Hanapēpē, for example, and its legacy of resistance against plantation owners illustrates how this locality’s history is fundamentally interwoven with its present-day spirit and identity. Home to many Native Hawaiians and locals whose families arrived to work on the plantations in the 19th century,
_ BIANCA WAGNER _ JESSE RECOR
HOME TO NATIVE HAWAIIANS AND LOCALS WITH LONGSTANDING TIES TO THE REGION, THE WEST SIDE OF KAUA‘I HAS PRESERVED ITS RURAL IDENTITY DESPITE GROWING TOURISM AND OUTSIDE INFLUENCES.
the west side has held fiercely onto its heart and soul amidst the creep of tourism and outsider interests. Since the island’s economy shifted away from industrial agriculture, all of its inhabitants have felt the impact of encroaching largescale development. Quaint towns like Hanapēpē and Waimea remain ardently defended by local residents who firmly wish to preserve Kaua‘i’s authentic spirit through a vision of mutual respect, reciprocity, and aloha ‘āina
For those spending time here, whether on their way to Waimea Canyon or visiting
their favorite local shops, there are opportunities to listen and learn about the hands, feet, and faces of those who maintain the environmental and cultural richness of the west side — opportunities to slow down, appreciate, and give back to the place that so many know and already love.
art Holly Ka‘iakapu
A smiling Holly Ka‘iakapu greets me in a sun-soaked courtyard in Hanapēpē
MURALIST HOLLY KA‘IAKAPU CREATES MEANINGFUL PUBLIC ART THAT UPLIFTS HAWAIIAN CULTURE AND HER NATIVE COMMUNITY. PREVIOUS PAGE, ARTWORK BY KA‘IAKAPU.
town, where she intermittently calls out to friends and neighbors as they wander in: “Tita, good to see you!” Ka‘iakapu, an interdisciplinary Kanaka Maoli artist born and raised on Kaua‘i, is working to generate a new vibrant public art space and to keep imagery of Hawaiian moʻolelo alive. “I just love where I’m from, that’s the root of my art,” Ka‘iakapu says of her artwork, which is informed by her upbringing on Kaua‘i’s west side. “Hanapēpē is home. My grandparents, both of them are from Hanapēpē. I feel like there’s nowhere else that I should be.”
ONE OF KA‘IAKAPU’S MOST VISIBLE MURALS IS AT WAIMAKAOHI‘IAKA, THE ANCESTRAL NAME FOR SALT POND BEACH PARK.
Raised in her family’s ecru-colored, two-story home that rests on the banks of the winding Hanapēpē River, Ka‘iakapu grew up with her feet on the same earth as her Hawaiian ancestors. An innate understanding and reverence for the traditions of the generations that came before her inspire her colorful murals and paintings, depicting native values and storied legends. When asked about her creative process, she reveals a deeply spiritual approach, saying, “I sit and kilo (to watch or observe), letting these Hawaiian concepts speak to me.”
In that sense, Ka‘iakapu likens her role
as an artist to that of a messenger, using her work to honor and preserve practices, while educating others through her creations about “knowing what’s pono and what’s not,” specifically when it comes to representing Hawaiian culture in the modern world, she says. Ka‘iakapu acknowledges that her work also presents her opportunities to learn about her own culture. “It’s a way for me to learn about the different wahi pana,” or sacred spaces, she says. “I’m diving deeper into stories, which allows me to learn and then create the space for others to learn more.”
Ka‘iakapu’s artistic path took her from Kaua‘i to California, where she studied visual and public art at California State University, Monterey Bay. After returning home, she committed to her vision of creating meaningful public art tied to Hawaiian culture that would make her community proud. Her first mural project, on a two-story apartment building in Līhu‘e, debuted in 2020 during NirMānā Fest, a week-long mural festival revitalizing buildings around the island’s capital city, opening doors for more public art commissions.
One of the pieces she’s most proud of is a mural at Waimakaohi‘iaka, also known as Salt Pond Beach Park. The adjacent salt ponds, of which the beach draws its popular nickname, are deeply important to local ‘ohana, who have been harvesting salt here for centuries. Ka‘iakapu is dedicated to shedding light on this cultural practice still alive today. “[This mural] means so much to me and it’s a huge educational opportunity,” she says. “This is the only place in the Pacific archipelago where man farms earth for salt in this manner.” The mural invites visitors to transform from passive observers to active participants with interactive QR codes that offer access to the mo‘olelo and traditions represented in the work.
Ka‘iakapu’s murals can be found around the island, including downtown Līhuʻe, local bus stops, and the National Tropical Botanical Garden. She also participates in Hanapēpē Town’s Friday Art Nights, a monthly community gathering of local artisans, typically held on every first Friday. Ka‘iakapu, like so many of those around her, imagines a world where those who come to the west side do so with openness and respect. “I want curious visitors and people who ask how they can give back,” she says. “Not just be extractive. Be curious enough to ask how they can show up for Kaua‘i.”
‘āina stewardship
Kumano I Ke Ala
Tucked beneath the sun-bleached hillsides of Waimea stretch acres of land with the capacity to nurture lo‘i kalo, the very staple of life in Hawai‘i. Waimea, once the home to thriving Native Hawaiian food systems, has seen many environmental changes over time, often a result of over-development and mismanagement. For over a hundred years, sugar plantations dominated Waimea, a bygone industry that now has fallen into complete decay, leaving the ghostly skeletons of once-thriving mills littered about the island. Thankfully, this Kaua‘i farm in Makaweli Valley tells a different story.
Today, the nonprofit Kumano I Ke Ala is dedicated to restoring the west side through its ‘ōpio, or youth, development programs that aim to encourage the next generation of cultural practitioners. Sited on a 50-acres of land in Waimea, KIKA offers workshops centered around an ‘āina-based curriculum. The mindfully structured and supportive environment offers its community youth stability that they may not find elsewhere. Kaina Makua, co-founder and executive director of KIKA, outlines the program’s core values: laulima (teamwork), kuleana (responsibility), and aloha ʻāina (love of the land), with ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi lessons woven into the curriculum. “Different words and ideas,” he says, “but they all come from the same lens.” Born and raised on Kaua‘i, Makua founded KIKA in 2007, leveraging his polymathic skills in fishing, hunting, and farming to lead the nonprofit’s conservation efforts while representing Hawai‘i’s values locally and abroad (he’s soon to appear as Kamehameha in Jason Momoa’s Chief of War , an upcoming Apple TV series about the unification of Hawai‘i).
These youth-centered activities include learning about Hawai‘i’s native plants, harvesting crops, pounding and cooking kalo, and teaching them the farm’s full life cycle. A strong emphasis is placed on instilling work ethic and a sense of responsibility in Kaua‘i’s youth given that a thriving farm relies on a collective effort. “The only way the canoe is going to keep going in the direction and speed it needs to go in,” Makua says, “we all have to buy into that together and every person needs to pull their weight.” His answer is a compelling allegory for the Native Hawaiian commitment to collectivism, so often challenged by the individualistic thinking that threatens the social fabric and ecology of Kaua‘i today.
Visitors and locals eager to get their hands dirty are invited to participate in community workdays, typically held on the second Sunday of each month.
COMMUNITY WORKDAYS GO BEYOND A SIMPLE VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY; THEY ARE A FORM OF COLLECTIVE ENGAGEMENT. “I KNOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE THEIR CHURCH DAYS ON SUNDAY,” KAINA MAKUA SAYS. “FOR US, THIS IS OUR TIME TOGETHER, OUR CHURCH, AT THIS FARM.”
Community workdays can draw anywhere from 30 to 80 volunteers, with workdays addressing whatever is needed at the time of the farm’s lifecycle, from cultivating wetland taro fields to uhauhumu pōhaku, or Hawaiian dry-stack stone masonry. These community workdays go beyond a simple volunteer opportunity — they are a form of collective community engagement. “I know many people have their church days on Sunday,” Makua says. “For us, this is our time together, our church, at this farm.” For those who are unable to attend in person, Makua encourages supporting the organization through donations.
“You know, reciprocity is key,” he says. Makua advises malihini to the island to give back in whatever ways they can: support ‘āina-based initiatives by volunteering, donate to local causes, or find similar farms to support across Hawai‘i.
retail
Fonda’s Daughter
Nestled next to Hanapēpē’s Hawaiian Congregational Church, Fonda’s Daughter co-founders Natalie Fonda and her husband Kekoa Seward have opened a Hawaiiana vintage store that feels like
stepping back in time. The extensive curation put into this collection of items — from mu’umu’u to aloha shirts to old music records — is so clearly a labor of love, one can’t help but be drawn in by what Fonda describes as an “organized treasure hunt.” At Fonda’s Daughter, Fonda and Seward specialize in showcasing and preserving vintage pieces, often rescuing items that might otherwise be thrown away, ensuring that a piece of history lives on.
Growing up on O‘ahu, in the windward community of Ka‘a‘awa in the 1990s, Fonda was raised with the love of all things vintage. Her father,
Fulvio Fonda, moved their family to Hawai‘i from the Bay Area in her early childhood. Being raised by a vintage dealer with a passion for aloha shirts meant that as a little girl she would tag along every weekend to the Aloha Stadium swap meet, a formative experience that shaped her deep connection to vintage Hawaiiana culture and inspired the shop’s name, Fonda’s Daughter. As an adult, Fonda continues to travel to O‘ahu every Sunday, joining her father to search for exciting finds in a ritual that demonstrates the intergenerational labor of love that underlies the heart of the shop’s endeavor.
KUMANO I KE ALA’S MISSION EMPHASIZES RECONNECTING WITH THE LAND, FOSTERING COMMUNITY, AND PRESERVING NATIVE HAWAIIAN CULTURE.
NATALIE FONDA AND KEKOA SEWARD VALUE THE SINCERE FEEL OF HANAPĒPĒ AND STRIVE TO PRESERVE THE TOWN’S CHARACTER WHILE CONTRIBUTING MEANINGFULLY TO THE COMMUNITY. “WE’RE TRYING TO KEEP THAT ORIGINAL CHARM, NOT GENTRIFY IT,” SEWARD SAYS.
Scattered around the little shop, one will find handwritten signs that designate each rack with the item’s name in ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i, a handmade touch from Seward’s mother, who can often be found lei-making out front on Hanapēpē Friday Art Nights, to imbue the space with a sense of Hawaiian identity. “Any opportunity we have to teach visitors the history and culture, it’s important,” Fonda says. “I think we have a responsibility to do that. I wasn’t born here, but I was raised here from the time I was 5-years-old and my husband’s family goes back generations.
My daughter is part-Hawaiian. I believe we have a duty to teach her the history as well.” For visitors, the shop provides an opportunity to move beyond surface-level experiences of Hawai‘i. Fonda and Seward encourage tourists to immerse themselves, learn about local perspectives, and connect with the island’s true essence. For locals, it’s a nostalgic dive into our recent past, delighting local customers young and old who find beautifully maintained vintage mu‘umu‘u or a graphic T-shirt that reminds them of the one their uncle used
to wear. Fonda is committed to keeping prices reasonable so locals can continue to shop hvere. “I know the history and the story that comes with a mu’u mu’u or an aloha shirt,’ she says. “Everything has a memory behind it and I think that’s most important. Sometimes I have people coming in and saying, ‘Oh I wish I had saved a bunch of my grandma’s things,’ and seeing their faces light up when they pull an item and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I see my grandma or my grandpa in this…’ They bring so many good memories with them.”
nature
Kaua‘i Forest Bird Recovery Project
In the heart of Kōkeʻe’s forests lives a small, gray-feathered bird named Pakele, meaning “to escape” in ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi. Pakele is an ‘akikiki, one of Kauaʻi’s rarest birds. With only two of her kind remaining in the wild, Pakele’s very existence is a testament to her name, a daily flight from the brink of extinction. Dr. Julia Diegmann, a scientist with the Kaua‘i Forest Bird Recovery Project, speaks of Pakele with the fondness and knowledge of a close friend, describing her as “remarkable.”
“She truly has been escaping,” Diegmann says, believing Pakele holds the record for the female ‘akikiki with the most nests ever found. “She should be extinct and she just keeps going.” This resilience, however, underscores the precariousness of her species’ situation.
Kaua‘i’s native birds face a multitude of urgent threats with avian malaria, spread by invasive mosquitoes, posing the greatest danger. Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death, a fungal disease targeting the ʻōhiʻa tree, a foundational species in Hawaiʻi’s forests, is another significant challenge. “All remaining forest birds depend on healthy ʻōhiʻa forests,” Diegman explains. “So, if we lose our ʻōhiʻa trees, like other islands are losing theirs, we will lose our habitat for our native forest birds.” These threats make the work of Kaua‘i Forest Bird Recovery Project, a nonprofit aiming to promote knowledge, appreciation, and conservation of the island’s native forest birds, all the more critical — and Pakele’s survival all the more extraordinary.
Based in Hanapēpē, Kaua‘i Forest Bird Recovery Project’s crucial efforts focus on one threatened species (‘i‘iwi) and three federally endangered species (‘akikiki, puaiohi, and ‘akeke‘e) within
the forests of Kōkeʻe. With six bird species found nowhere else on Earth, Kauaʻi’s bird population is an irreplaceable part of the island’s natural and cultural heritage. These animals play a vital role in its ecosystem, pollinating native plants, controlling insect populations, and dispersing seeds, all essential to maintaining healthy Kaua‘i forests. Conservation efforts are driven by the dedication of nonprofit’s individuals, but also depend on the awareness and actions of everyone who lives on or visits Kaua‘i. Taking precautions to avoid spreading Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death, such as cleaning shoes and clothing, is crucial. “Pack out what you pack in,” Diegmann advises, “and leave the forest better than you found it.” She also recommends exploring the project’s website for resources, including guides on responsible birdwatching. “What I want to stress is that when you think about how Native Hawaiians view visiting these birds in sacred areas like Kōke’e,” Diegmann says, “be aware that you are really privileged to go there.” She encourages visitors to the forests to approach these areas with gratitude and respect.
For those eager to get involved, visitors can participate in occasional volunteer trips, support the organization through donations, or purchase merchandise that directly funds conservation projects. These items, including shirts and mugs, are available at the Alakoko Shop in Līhuʻe and the project’s headquarters in Hanapēpē. Local volunteers are always invited to assist with community outreach and mosquito control. “Support conservation by talking to your friends and talking to your elected officials,” Diegmann says, stressing the importance of grassroots and direct advocacy. “Tell them you don’t want to see these birds go extinct. They need to hear from people who care about these species.” a
THE RESILIENCE OF THE ‘AKIKIKI NAMED PAKELE EMBODIES BOTH THE FRAGILITY AND THE ENDURING SPIRIT OF KAUA‘I’S WILDLIFE. THE NATIVE BIRD’S STORY IS ONE OF INDIVIDUAL SURVIVAL, BUT IT ALSO SERVES AS A CALL TO ARMS FOR VISITORS AND LOCALS ALIKE. IMAGE BY GRAHAM TALABER, COURTESY OF KAUA‘I FOREST BIRD RECOVERY PROJECT.
He Who Follows the Wai
A LOCAL O‘AHU CHEF TURNS HIS GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL INTO A WILDLY SELF-SUSTAINING LIFESTYLE.
TEXT BY IMAGES BY
_ SARAH BURCHARD
_ JOHN HOOK
The first time Yuda Abitbol went foraging in Hawaiʻi, he almost died. He was 19 years old, living a fast life in Waikīkī, when he met a girl who invited him to go on a hunt for angel trumpet flowers. A stranger on the beach had told her the flowers could produce psychedelic effects similar to mushrooms, and Abitbol was game to try.
After all, he was accustomed to ingesting mind-altering plants. His mom was from Chihuahua, Mexico, where peyote natively grows. In her indigenous culture, the plant was used as medicine. She had taken it her whole life, even after she moved to Oʻahu while pregnant with Abitbol, who was born in Kahaluʻu in 1992. When his parents divorced five years later, he moved to California with his mom, who sold shawls at powwows. On the weekends, they would join tribal members on the La Jolla reservation to forage berries and miner’s lettuce and catch crawfish in creeks and ponds. Abitbol inherited a calabash grandfather who was an Arapaho medicine man from Wyoming, and his family was invited to attend tribal rituals, staying up all night listening to mythical stories. He said he was five the first time he took peyote at one of the ceremonies.
But the angel trumpet tea put Abitbol in a coma for five days. “The best way to describe it is you take 20 tabs of acid and get bit by a rattlesnake and you just begin to die while you’re tripping out,” Abitbol said. “That girl sent me down to hell. In Native American myths, that plant is used to wipe away your spirit. It’s like hitting a refresh button — if you make it out.”
When Abitbol awoke, all he could think about were plants: How they functioned in the wild, how they were related to each other, how they are used, where he could find them in nature. His new obsession came with an awakening: He needed to get his life in order.
For years, he worked the hot line in Honolulu kitchens starting at a grimy burger truck in Waikīkī and eventually at Fete, 53 by the Sea, and Herringbone. But it was during a stint as a roofer in Hanapēpē, Kauaʻi, when he was 26 years old, that he developed a passion for local ingredients. There, he stayed with his best friend’s uncle, who cared for salt flats by day, and by night put beers on ice and prepared dinner for them — dishes like fresh aku sashimi and poke or Samoan crabs stir-fried in a wok. For breakfast, the uncle would make smoked meat with eggs from his chickens and homemade wai nīoi, or chili pepper water. At work, guys from Niʻihau told Abitbol stories about picking endemic ʻopihi and catching ‘ahi from the shore. When his friend’s uncle sent Abitbol home to Honolulu with two Ziploc bags of salt from his ‘ohana’s flats, Abitbol was ready to start developing his own cooking style.
These days, Abitbol lives on the mauka side of Pālolo along Pūkele
ABITBOL PRACTICES HIS LIFELONG FASCINATION WITH FORAGING BY VENTURING FOR WOOD EAR MUSHROOMS OR PACKING JARS OF FRESHLY HARVESTED STAR FRUIT FROM HIS BACKYARD.
PREVIOUSLY A LINE COOK, ABITBOL PARLAYED THOSE EXPERIENCES INTO PRIVATE FORAGED DINNERS FOR A SELECT GROUP OF DINERS HE CHOOSES FROM HIS BOOKING LIST. “I WANT TO KNOW WHO WANTS THE DINNER AND WHY,” HE SAYS.
Stream with his dog, Hōʻiʻo. Here, he grows herbs, canoe crops, and tropical fruit. Gotu kola, kava, and cinnamon grow wild behind his home. Steps away, he forages wood ear mushrooms and, if he’s lucky, traps a pig. Inside, jars of honey, pickles, dried peppercorns, and freshly harvested salts line his shelves. There are locally grown grapes in the freezer, pickled star fruit from his backyard and Korean cheong made of sea grapes in the fridge, and a jar of white peaches from Kōkeʻe, Kauaʻi bubbling their way to kombucha on his counter. This is all fodder for Abitbol’s private foraged dinners, which he started offering in 2021. The meal may
include a crudo of local kala garnished with ‘ākulikuli, wild fennel, and limu; a fresh pasta showered with bottarga he makes with ‘ōmilu (bluefin trevally) he spearfished, or a salad made of crunchy hōʻiʻo ferns with wild chestnuts and snow fungus. You might sit at a table covered in live moss and fresh flowers alongside oyster shells filled with Norfolk pine sap for candles. At the end of the meal, you may inhale the smoke of petrified sandalwood to evoke the forest where most of your meal came from.
The sensory and decorative touches are inspired by time Abitbol spent in
France. When he was 14, he moved back to Hawaiʻi to live with his FrenchMoroccan dad and the pair took regular trips to his Parisian birthplace. What impressed Abitbol most about the French was their attention to detail when setting a table. There were elaborate centerpieces and particular silverware and glassware for each dish. “[Eating is] like a little ritual to them,” he said. “In France they cherish their table. I try to instill that into my dinners.”
For the chef, everything starts with salt and pepper. Once he has harvested those, it’s about what he can gather that
ABITBOL IS CAREFUL NOT TO OVERHARVEST. HE TAKES ONLY WHAT HE NEEDS AND STRETCHES A SMALL BATCH OF INGREDIENTS TO FEED HIS GUESTS. HE DOCUMENTS HIS OFF-GRID EXCURSIONS IN A DIGITAL GASTRONOMIC JOURNAL AT @FOLLOWSTHEWAI ON INSTAGRAM.
won’t put too much strain on the species. He has protocols, like asking the gods for permission to enter new spaces, leaving offerings, and bringing gifts to fellow foragers. “I don’t just get off the airplane and help myself to this and that,” he said. “I have a friend in the zone I’m going to, and I always bring gifts for them like salt, pepper, cinnamon, so there’s an exchange.”
The first intention he had when he started foraging was not to overharvest. A perfect example is his ‘opihi pasta. He’ll turn the black-foot limpet into a compound butter to toss the noodles in instead of giving each guest their own
‘opihi, so he can stretch what he has and harvest less.
In 2023, Abitbol also began offering foraging classes. He developed his expertise by following tips about wild foods often shared by local kūpuna or kids. From there, he goes hunting for information in the library. Only after he has learned everything he needs to know about the ingredient, including what kind of environment they thrive in and how and when they came to Hawaiʻi, does he go looking for it in nature.
But he never goes searching for only one thing. “If I do, I never find it,” he
said. Once, he was foraging for Slippery Jack mushrooms and came upon ʻākala berry, which he’d been hunting for three years. The brave and curious can learn about Abitbol on his Instagram account called @followsthewai, a gastronomic journal of his discoveries, dinners, and off-grid excursions over the years. But don’t think finding foraging information will be easy. Abitbol purposely leaves his posts uncategorized and slightly vague. “If you want to learn about something, you have to look through the journal to find it,” he said. “You have to put in some groundwork, the same way I did.”
FOR YEARS, ABITBOL MANNED THE HOT LINE IN SOME OF HONOLULU’S FINEST KITCHENS. TODAY, HE CURATES EXCLUSIVE PRIVATE DINNERS FEATURING FORAGED INGREDIENTS.
The same goes for booking a dinner. “I want to know who wants the dinner and why,” Abitbol said. “I’m pretty picky with people.” A banquet for 40 people would be out of Abitbol’s scope, but an intimate dinner for six hunters would be on the mark. “The center focus is foraging, the ingredients, and storytelling,” he said.
LIVING WELL
“ To bring people the joy and serenity this place brings us, it makes
us feel good. People don’t understand it till they get here and see the ocean view. ” —
Clark Little
At the industrial Puka Prints warehouse in Kalihi, it takes two people to screenprint the fabric unfurled on two 30-yard tables — one employee on each side, taking turns pulling a wide, wood-handled squeegee across fine silk stretched onto a 24-inch-wide frame. Back and forth, back and forth, until the ink is spread smoothly enough to create the desired print — in this case, pūhala atop an ʻilima-orange cotton fabric for The Hawaiian Force, a Hilobased aloha wear brand. Then they move two steps down, leaving the space of a frame between the wet ink and where they place it down again, repeating the process until they reach the end of the table. Screenprinting is a matter of hurry up and wait. After the first pass down the 60 yards of fabric, which takes about an
Meaning in the Making
TEXT
BY
IMAGES BY
hour, the team waits 10 minutes for it to dry before starting another pass to fill in the blanks. “A lot of things we do is kinda old school,” says owner Chris Yokogawa at his onsite office, where his two dogs rest in a small pen. Customers choose the color for their print from a physical book of fabric swatches, after which an employee with decades of experience carefully mixes ink from various buckets into a perfect match. For the custom designs, digital files are sent to a company in Los Angeles that burns film positives on transparencies, which Puka Prints then uses to make large wood-framed silk screens. The films and screens are stored indefinitely at the warehouse, ready to be pulled out to fulfill an order at a customer’s behest.
Puka Prints was started in 1999 by Chris’s father, Dickie Yokogawa, who had worked since he was a teenager for his uncle’s screenprinting business and fashion company. But Chris had no plans to get into the scene. He had left Hawaiʻi, where he was born and raised, to attend the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1984, earning a degree in marketing. Afterward, he moved to Los Angeles and built a fruitful life as a media director.
_ ANNA HARMON
_ JOHN HOOK
HOW PUKA PRINTS HAS BEEN BREATHING LIFE INTO LOCAL FABRICS FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS.
But in 2010, Chris found himself wanting to spend more time with his mom, which got him to thinking that if he moved home, he could have a completely different version of adulthood. Chris decided to move back and envisioned starting his own media company, but shortly before his return,
PUKA PRINTS WAS FOUNDED IN 1999 BY CHRIS YOKOGAWA’S FATHER, DICKIE YOKOGAWA, WHO GREW UP WORKING IN HIS UNCLE’S SCREENPRINTING AND FASHION BUSINESS.
Dickie learned he was sick and asked Chris to take over Puka Prints.
One of Puka Prints’ longest and dearest clients is Sig Zane Designs. “Sig and my dad had a very good relationship,” Chris recalls. When he was still in LA preparing to move back to Hawaiʻi, Dickie called to introduce him to the Sig Zane team. When Dickie died just weeks after Chris moved back, Sig Zane was at the funeral “putting leis on the altar.”
“Dickie was a force of nature and a barrel of laughs,” says Ipo Kahele, the production manager of Sig Zane Designs. In the ’80s, during the early years of the brand, they worked with companies like Island Hand Blockers and G. Von Hamm Textiles. Kahele believes Dickie had a connection to one such company, which is how he and Sig met. Early on, Sig Zane
Designs began working with Puka Prints to produce their signature silk screen printed designs. “Thanks to Dickie’s years of experience and his know-how in the printing industry, he helped us cement our method of hand-printing with the large screens that we use today, as it best reflected our humble beginnings,” Kahele says. Though some fabric is printed off-island, Puka Prints remains the only screen printer for the brand.
When Chris took over Puka Prints upon returning to Oʻahu in 2011, there was little in terms of a real business structure, though according to a family member it was doing well and Dickie was having fun choosing and mentoring clients, which included You and Me Naturally and Mamo Howell. In the first few months, Chris had to find a new location, move all
the equipment over, and shore up the termite-eaten tables. He also got employees on payroll and health insurance. It was a chance to apply skills he had gained working for a small media business in LA to his new life.
“Chris is about as solid a partner you could ever ask for,” says Kahele. “He is always willing to go that extra mile when we need help. He helps us find workable solutions when we are in a bind. He is honest when things are not working for them, or when we need to adjust things on our end. His integrity is unquestionable.”
These days at the warehouse, among hundreds of screens and rolls of films, there are frames labeled for Hawai‘i brands Roberta Oaks, Tutuvi Designs, and Nakeʻu Awai as well as numerous hula hālau. According to Chris, about 70
WHENEVER CHRIS VISITS HILO, HE BRINGS MANAPUA AND PORK HASH FOR THE ENTIRE SIG ZANE STAFF, TREATS THEY DON’T HAVE EASY ACCESS TO OTHERWISE. “THE RELATIONSHIP WE HAVE BETWEEN OUR COMPANIES IS JUST ONE OF EASY FRIENDSHIP AND ALOHA,” KAHELE SAYS, “SO WE DO WHAT WE CAN TO SUPPORT ONE ANOTHER — AND SOMETIMES THAT MEANS GOING THAT EXTRA STEP OR FIVE TO DO SO.”
PROMOTIONAL CONTENT
The Royal Standard
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT FACEBOOK.COM/KEKAHILILLC, EMAIL KEKAHILI01@GMAIL.COM, OR CALL (808) 306-6022.
Ke Kāhili–The Royal Standard is a Native Hawaiian wahine-owned small business based on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, dedicated to creating exceptional jewelry that reflects the beauty and spirit of the islands. Their team of expert cultural artisans ensures that each piece embodies “ka hanu aloha,” or “the breath of life embraced by love,” guaranteeing unique, high-quality works of art.
The brand takes pride in offering one-of-a-kind Tahitian pearl pieces, meticulously crafted with care and attention to detail. Customer
satisfaction is at the heart of Ke Kāhili, and they offer personalized service through design consultations and custom orders. Whether you have a specific vision or need assistance creating a treasured piece, their local artisans are eager to bring your ideas to life.
Ke Kāhili also hosts weekly virtual pop-up auctions on Facebook Live, providing an interactive shopping experience, and participates in various specialty tradeshows around O‘ahu, showcasing their exquisite creations to a wider audience.
JOIN US FOR POP UP MĀKEKE AT HILTON HAWAIIAN
IN THE
ON MAY 11, 9AM-3PM!
VILLAGE
CORAL BALLROOM
percent of his orders are from commercial clients with stores, while the remainder is a mix of hālau, individuals with personal projects, and colleges and schools. Puka Prints has screen printed custom fabric for Blaisdell uniforms, Kamehameha Schools kihei, and hālau pāʻū or performances. You have likely encountered its work on an aloha shirt at a party or a booth at Merrie Monarch.
Puka Prints is the only company to commercially screen print fabric for others in Hawaiʻi (unlike those that screen print products or their own materials). In 1997, when Puka Prints was nascent, the third largest manufacturing industry in Hawaiʻi was apparel and textiles, according to Hawaiʻi’s Department of Economic Business and Development; by 2021 they didn’t even register on the DBEDT manufacturing industry report. Still, Chris sees a rise of new local fashion lines interested in keeping business local, which he attributes in part to the newfound ease of selling online and on Instagram. Unlike having fabric produced overseas, which usually requires a high minimum yardage, Puka Prints also allows new and small-scale designers to make a limited run of fabric.
Another local company Chris has supported is Jana Lam, which he helped set up screen printing production. More than 14 years ago, Jana Lam sought out Puka Prints to learn more about screen printing, as she remembers it, and Chris welcomed her and answered all of her questions. What started with Lam using Puka Prints to produce fabric for a project for a friend turned into Chris helping her set up her own workshop and making her company’s large repeat screens. “Through the years he has helped me on numerous occasions, with the build of our washout, with the design of our repeat tables; you name it, he is always willing to lend a hand,” Lam says via email, emphasizing how thankful and grateful she is for him.
For Chris, his company is an important resource — one that would be cost-prohibitive to most clients if he raised his prices as he really should. “It’s a challenge,” Chris says. “My costs are outpacing my revenue. If I wanted to really move forward, then I would get new equipment, new machines, and a bigger place.” While he says industrial warehouses are hard to find because they’re being rented by construction companies,
Chris is hopeful about new hires, which will enable him to print on the weekends. He doesn’t see a future in which he will want, or be able, to retire. Most of us have encountered the work of Puka Prints on an aloha shirt worn by a friend or politician or at a booth at Merrie Monarch. It exemplifies the art of screen printing, a craft that brings the energy of its tactile process to the finished product: ink atop fabric, layered elements, charming imperfections. In a time when the digital world feels like it is rapidly expanding, seeing a product made by hand rather than machine feels like a statement of intention and care. It feels like Hawai‘i.a
HULA HĀLAU THAT ORDER WITH PUKA PRINTS ARE RICH PEDRINA’S HALAU HULA O NAPUNAHELEONAPUA AND ROBERT KAUPU‘S HALAU NA MAMO O KAHALE LEHUA
Native Threads, Authentic Aloha
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT FACEBOOK.COM/KAHANUALOHALLC, EMAIL KAHANUALOHA01@GMAIL.COM, OR CALL (808) 306-6022.
Ka Hanu Aloha, a Native Hawaiian wahine-owned small business on O‘ahu. The brand name, which translates to “the breath of life embraced by love,” encapsulates our vision and infuses every piece with the aloha spirit and is inspired by the lush landscapes, rhythmic waves, and timeless mo‘olelo shared by our kūpuna of Kō Hawai‘i Pae ‘Āina and crafted using locally sourced materials that mālama ‘āina.
Sustainability and ethical artistic practices are deeply rooted in our cultural values of aloha, hō‘ihi, and kuleana.
We guarantee that every step of our production process embodies our unwavering commitment and dedication.
Through intentional designs that are aesthetically pleasing and meaningful, we believe in the power of clothing; you are embracing a piece of Hawai‘i and feeling empowered by your unique style, inspiring confidence and self-expression.
Ka Hanu Aloha humbly extends an invitation to you to join us on a journey of aloha. We consider it a privilege to be a part of your story.
JOIN US FOR POP UP MĀKEKE AT HILTON HAWAIIAN VILLAGE IN THE CORAL BALLROOM ON MAY 11, 9AM-3PM!
A shuttle bus picks up a group of people waiting in front of a sign that reads Little Plumeria Farms—“Little” being the surname of its founder, Jim Little, not a description of the plumerias or the farm itself. The bus takes them away from the iconic surf breaks and beachside shopping of Hale‘iwa Town on O‘ahu’s North Shore, excitement building as it drives through a private gate and climbs up a dusty dirt road caked in crimson clay. This is not the Hale‘iwa that visitors to Hawai‘i typically come to see, nor is it the Hale‘iwa that locals have come to know.
The Little Plumeria That Could
IN HALE‘IWA, A WORLD-RENOWNED FRANGIPANI FARM OPENS ITS DOORS TO THE PUBLIC.
TEXT BY IMAGES BY
_ ERIC STINTON _ JOHN HOOK
Since the farm’s founding in 1973, access to its 20 acres has been limited to those who maintain the trees and harvest the flowers for commercial sales. All this despite Jim being one of the most famous frangipani growers in the world, known for unique hybrids that can fetch hundreds of dollars among collectors. But for the first time in its 50-year history, Little Plumeria Farms is opening its doors to the public, allowing visitors to view the world-renowned cultivars in person.
“It’s a special place for us,” says Jim’s son, Clark Little, a famed local surf photographer who manages the farm alongside his father and son, Dane. “But to bring people the joy and serenity this place brings us, it makes us feel good. People don’t understand it till they get here and see the ocean view.”
Indeed, if it weren’t for the deep blue ocean in the distance, it would look less like a tropical island and more like a vision of Mars after successful terraforming: red earth dotted with rows of trees as far as the eye can see, flanked by the rugged cliffs of the Wai‘anae Mountains. The sprawling farm is a testament to
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ITS 50-YEAR HISTORY, A DUSTY DIRT ROAD IN HALE‘IWA LEADS VISITORS TO LITTLE PLUMERIA FARMS, A 20-ACRE LANDSCAPE OF PLUMERIA VARIETIES, NAMED FOR ITS FOUNDER JIM LITTLE
THE FRANGIPANI FARM IS A FAMILY AFFAIR WITH THREE GENERATIONS MANAGING THE LAND TOGETHER.
how successful Jim’s plumeria business has become, growing from a hobby into what is today a multigenerational, globally renowned operation.
The bus arrives at its destination. The group of 18 adults and two young children are brought to a shaded area between two distinct sections of countless full-grown plumeria trees: one for rare hybrids, another for free-picking. Each person is given a small paper bag to collect their complimentary blooms, and tour guides start passing around different varieties. The group becomes
a collective chorus of “ooohs” and “aaahs” as they smell the blooms and drop them into their bags for safekeeping.
Dane proceeds to explain how they raise plumeria from seed pod to full bloom—a nearly four-year process in which trees don’t begin flowering until 12 months into their growth. The farm currently has about 1,000 trees in the ground, Dane explains, and another 3,000 in pots. As he wraps up the orientation, questions rise from the audience.
“Do they bloom all year long?” someone asks.
“No,” Dane says, “they go dormant around November and start to bloom around April.”
“Are plumerias native to Hawai‘i?”
“No, they originate from Latin America and the Caribbean, and they were brought to Hawai‘i in 1860.”
The second answer surprises the crowd, even though most of them are kama‘āina. Plumerias, which are commonly associated with Hawai‘i, are the floral equivalent of hula dancing or surfing. Plumeria lei greet visitors and returning residents at local
ORIGINATING IN LATIN AMERICA, PLUMERIAS WERE BROUGHT TO HAWAI‘I IN THE 1860S. THE LITTLES’ FARM DISPLAYS THE VARIETIES THAT HAVE RESULTED SINCE, INCLUDING JIM LITTLE’S OWN HYBRIDS NAMED HANG LOOSE, SHOREBREAK, AND MADAME PELE
Boeing 747-400 Nose Loader service and Ad Hoc charters on demand. Connecting LAX and HNL daily with daily connections to Neighbor Islands and weekly service to Pago Pago and Guam.
airports, adorn performers at the Merrie Monarch Festival on Hawai‘i Island, and decorate downtown Honolulu’s famed King Kamehameha statue by the thousands on Kamehameha Day. In a way, plumerias are representative of many local people: brought to Hawai‘i from elsewhere and woven into the fabric of modern life in the islands.
The beauty of this intermingling is particularly evident on the first part of the tour, when Dane and the other guides take the group through the rare and hybrid flowers. Some of the trees are deliberately cross-pollinated, but
many are simply the product of letting nature take its course. Vibrant colors fill the trees in swirls of reds and oranges and purples and pinks. Some of the flowers have five petals, others grow six or seven. A woman on the tour exclaims, “They almost look fake!”
Their fragrances are just as surprising and eclectic, so much so that there’s disagreement among the tour group about what they smell like. Some smell citrus fruits where others smell papaya; some get a whiff of rose while others get notes of pīkake. Only two flowers elicit a unanimous consensus among the
DANE LITTLE PICKS FROM ONE OF THE 1,000 PLANTED PLUMERIA TREES AT THE FARM THAT NATURALLY EMITS A LINGERING BLEND OF SWEET FRAGRANCES.
group: grape Kool-Aid and baby diaper. “A good graduation gift for someone you don’t like,” Dane jokes of the latter. The tour wraps up with a period of free time to pick flowers, peruse the gift shop, and relax in the shade. Soon the group will head back down the dusty dirt road, leaving behind the rich red earth and heady scent of plumeria. They will depart with a bag of flowers, maybe a candle from the gift shop, and a new appreciation for a flower they thought they knew. But for now, the group chats idly, taking in the singular beauty of their surroundings. a
Epilog
Spirit to spirit, let’s meet. Without the weight of names or pasts, as light as words
and there, at last, beyond the reach of our country purposeful in our movements but slow to complete them,
we repose at a table in a cafe suffused in gold and yellow to talk and pass the afternoon
as we have for centuries, until we feel the waves of ease lift us from our sleep.
We were meant for this and given skill to praise, or to make silence.
You will tell me how beautiful are the colors of my breathing and I will note the fine blue silk
woven through your eyes. Last night, We both had dreams of circles and saw the future in a glass of water.
You play a trick on your shadow while I melt into vapor. I rise, disperse, visible only as light.
HAS BEEN WRITING POETRY SINCE THE FOURTH GRADE. IT HAS NOT PROVED A VIABLE CAREER PATH, SO HE MOONLIGHTS AS THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF FOR HANA HOU!, THE MAGAZINE OF HAWAIIAN AIRLINES.
