Mural - ʻUlu DRS

Our Mural Project

On Sep 8, 2013: Five days in August at Camp Mokuleʻia, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. Six artists, several alakaʻi, family and kokua, gather for a spiritual ceremony in Art. A healing ceremony. A celebration of culture, heritage and our future. Who are we? We are Hawaiian. We are alive. And we are still here.

Kuʻu ʻĀina Aloha Mural Project (2013)

“Beloved Land, Beloved Country”

Part of the cultural safety of the training was engagement of the life force within the humanitarian relationship to imagery, prayer, and each other. Each webinar makes space to hear from artist and aunty Meleanna Meyer, who highlights a particular kiʻi – picture/retrieval device – that is part of a mural completed in 2013, Kuʻu ʻĀina Aloha: Kuʻu ʻĀina Aloha: Beloved Land, Beloved Country. These concepts, accompanied by pule, link us to the spiritual tools needed to prepare for natural disasters. The Māpuna Lab bows deeply in gratitude to Meleanna Meyer, Al Lagunero, Harinani Orme, Kahi Ching, Carl F.K. Pao and Solomon Enos, the artists who created the mural shared throughout our series, for their contributions to the medicine of this work.

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Community Mural Project with Pacific Voices at Kōkua Kalihi Valley

The Māpuna lab is partnering with Pacific Voices, a youth program at Kōkua Kalihi Valley, to create a mural inspired by Kuʻu ʻĀina Aloha: Beloved Land, Beloved Country.

Pacific Voices was created by Innocenta Sound-Kikku as a space where mothers who feared their children would grow up not knowing where they came from could teach their children about the sacred pillars of identity. The Micronesian migrant community is an extension of the navigating societies they descend from. Just as their ancestors before them, they traversed vast stretches of ocean, albeit by plane, in search of new opportunities to build better homes than they have known for their children.

To heal from this trauma is a daunting task. Art and culture can be tools to process the pain carried by the Micronesian community for generations following decades of uninterrupted colonization by the Spanish, the Germans, the Japanese, and most recently the United States. There is power in reclaiming relationships both to the Pacific homeland and the navigational identity inherent within.

Mural Project Reflection