Based on Hawaiʻi island, this project brings together different knowledges and practices (including those from Native Hawaiians, natural resource managers, university researchers from different disciplines, artists and curators) to co-learn, research, explore and create projects around climate resilience, and the cultural, economic, social, and ecological regenerative potential of hala (Pandanus tectorius). This project involves a consortium of organizations coordinated by the Enlivened Cooperative, including: the University of Hawai’i; The Kohala Center; and Kū-A-Kanaka. The project started in October 2023 and is being funded by the US Geological Survey’s Pacific Island Climate Adaptation Science Center (USGS/PI-CASC). The envisioned results are co-created research, conservation and education projects, and art/communication outputs that coalesce from the encounter of scientists, researchers, natural and cultural resource managers, cultural practitioners, educators, students and artists who have a stake in hala. One key output of the project is an exhibition of pieces created by project participants to be exhibited at the Wailoa Gallery in Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island in May 2025. Additional funds for the exhibition have been provided by the Craft Research Council and the Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities. The Enlivened Cooperative has emerged partially out of the ongoing work of the Ecoversities Alliance, which has been active since 2015 and which came to fruition as a strategic response to the inability of current higher education models to adequately respond to our planetary crises.
Hala: Weaving Knowledge and Practices exhibition at the Wailoa Gallery, Hilo
Hala: Weaving Knowledge and Practices exhibition at the Wailoa Gallery, Hilo
Bringing together a community of lauhala weavers and caretakers, scientists, artists and curators this exhibition seeks to celebrate hala-human relationships which have been cultivated over generations. Having engaged with each other's knowledge and practices over the period of one year, and focusing on hala, this group has created a series of works which point to the challenges this ongoing hala-human relationship faces and also dreams what this relationship could look like in the future.