Arts & Culture

After a big weekend on Maui, the Hawaii Food and Wine Festival is wrapping up in Honolulu this week. The annual event raises money for agriculture and culinary projects across the state, and organizers say they’ve raised nearly two and a half million dollars since they started eight years ago. It’s a lot of work, and much of it is volunteer, but workers include students who see their future in the field.

A hardy band of UH faculty and state and county officials is just back from a learning trip to U.S. East Coast cities that are wrestling with climate change. This week’s Future Focus conference brought academic, business, and government leaders together to collaborate on climate adaptation.

Styles of comedy have changed over the years, and the best of it continues to touch on things we all have in common, living in Hawai‘i. Still, connections outside the islands are changing the style and content of local comedy and the Hawai‘i Sketch Comedy Festival this weekend will show case some of what’s out there now.

Kaua‘i artist Sally French is quietly taking care of business in Kalāheo, on the Garden Isle. Painting and drawing is what it’s all about for French, and a tour through her show in Honolulu is a lot like a visit to her studio.

Hawai‘i is seen as a multicultural model around the world, but how did that reputation start?  In his new book, an expert on race says the idea was publicized as part of the backdrop to an explosive trial that rocked Honolulu in 1928. Myles Fukunaga was sentenced to hang for kidnapping and murder on this day, ninety-one years ago.

Donkey Mill Art Center in Hōlualoa, on the Kona side of Hawai‘i island, is showing new takes on a familiar subject: books. Digital media has freed the book arts to be just about anything humans want to see and touch.

Hawaiian language theater is one way to experience advances in historical and cultural knowledge about the past. It's a story that many local scholars have lived through.

There are shifts underway in Hawai‘i’s art scene, both in Honolulu and on the neighbor islands.  As part of a series charting our arts infrastructure, HPR is checking in with key players.  Today, a visit to the East- West Center Gallery, whose curator is leaving after fifteen years.

Millions of people around the world are taking part in the Global Climate Strike. It’s been organized by international networks of young people, and young people in Hawai‘i are right on top of it. 

Continuing our look at Hawai‘i’s arts infrastructure, there are changes at UH Mānoa.  Three key exhibition spaces on campus are under new leadership, and after 13 years, the Art Department has a new chairperson as well.

Final interviews are wrapping up today for the next director of the Honolulu Museum of Art. But that’s just part of the change underway in the infrastructure of Hawaii’s art world. In the UH system, there are new gallery directors at KCC and on the Mānoa campus. There are changes too, at the State Art Museum, HiSAM, and at the State Foundation.

Poet, novelist R. Zamora Linmark is kicking off a national tour for his latest novel tonight in Honolulu. Harvard, Columbia, and other schools have booked him for presentations based largely on his last two novels, which present insightful and rollicking images of both Filipinos, and sexual awakening. Linmark’s latest novel is a departure in many ways.

The Arts at Marks Garage became an immediate fixture in Chinatown after it opened in 2001, mostly because there is nothing else like it.  The Arts shows everything from edgy performance pieces to youth poetry and watercolors.  It is also a shared office, and a satellite for the Friends of the Library. Now, the Arts at Marks is taking a hard look at its prospects in Chinatown.

After a month of sweltering temperatures, August closed with a record 95 degrees in Honolulu on Saturday. As local residents make more and more adjustments for the heat, the United Nations Climate Commission has concluded that simple changes in land use would help resolve global warming. In this edition of Planet808, climate expert Chip Fletcher says, Hawai‘i could lead on this. The new UN findings dovetail with initiatives already taking root in Hawai‘i.

A new play opening in Honolulu links history, family, culture, and modern life in Hawai‘i.  It’s the final episode in a trilogy that started 25 years ago, and has made some waves along the way.  The author agreed to an interview in Kakaako park, well aware that many of the issues dealt with in the play come to a head in the park daily.

Artist, designer Pegge Hopper has helped shape the world’s view of Hawai‘i.  Her most famous paintings feature cool, design centered compositions of women, mostly Hawaiian women, and large areas of flat color.   At 84 years old, HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports, Hopper is selling her gallery on Nu‘uanu and starting a new life.

Each year, an estimated 500 to 600 wildfires sweep across parts of Oahu. But those fires are different than the ones that burn on the mainland, and in many ways, the charred fields are just the beginning of the problem. 

Though not in the news every day, the 2018 Kīlauea eruption continues to reverberate in people’s lives. Currently, at the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center, an artist’s experience of total devastation has given rise to an installation that reflects on roots.

If you’re looking for a different place to shop and eat in Honolulu, ‘Ohana Hale Marketplace might interest you.  The Marketplace is basically street stalls in air conditioning, and more than fifty of the stalls are food vendors, inside the former Sports Authority on Ward Avenue. New shuttles from Waikīkī should improve traffic for the hopeful entrepreneurs.

This weekend, organizers expect about ten thousand people will attend the 8th annual Pacific Ink and Art Expo in Honolulu. More than 450 tattoo artists will be plying their trade. Why do some of these artists have more than three million followers on social media?

Singer, songwriter Maryanne Ito is a single mother of two, and she was serious about her full time insurance career, when her debut album reached #4 on the U.K. Soul Chart. That was 2014. Five years later, HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports the Hawai‘i-based singer is back from a smash tour of Japan, and ready to release her latest album.

Last year, a spark from a hammer was enough to ignite dry grass, and contribute to the largest wildfire in California history. All across the Western U.S., firefighters are wondering what might lie ahead this season. Here in the Islands, thousands evacuated earlier this month as a wildfire tore through central Maui.  In this edition of Planet808, HPR’s Noe Tanigawa looks at Hawai‘i’s increasing risk for wildfires.

The Downtown Art Center has just opened in the City's Chinatown Gateway Plaza, the big pink building at Nu‘uanu and Hotel. Looking forward to a lot more action there when the new Satellite City Hall moves in. Meanwhile, First Hawaiian Bank Center has a new show up, and look what's on the walls at Pig and the Lady!

Local boy, Zak Noyle is recognized as one of the best water photographers in the world.  His shot of trash arcing overhead in a wave in Indonesia is featured in National Geographic right now, and you’ve seen his work in Sports Illustrated and on ESPN.  He was senior staff photographer at Surfer magazine by age 25, but he’s seen the business change. He’s hoping this year’s Doris Duke Surf Film Festival will put a new generation of surf filmmakers on the map.

It’s the height of Summer 2019, and Honolulu is having an art and design moment, with interesting shows scattered around town, and an installation featuring local designers and makers at South Shore Market. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports that public spaces in the Market are now the Shape of the Wave to Come gallery-- featuring a new wave of local creatives.

People living on the sidewalks is hard to get used to, yet Hawai‘i residents on every island see it every day.  Recently back from a statewide homeless tour, Lt. Governor Josh Green says two new initiatives on O‘ahu hold promise for making a difference. H4 services and the Kauhale housing initiative would dovetail with successful programs already underway.

The federal government says no state in the country has a more severe homeless problem than Hawai’i. That’s been the case for a number of years—but the approach to dealing with the issue is changing. One idea is to move hundreds of people at a time into new communities. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa found that Lieutenant Governor Josh Green is embracing a Kauhale village model that some homeless are eager to try.

Eating Around -- we all do it! It’s time to take stock of what we’re eating and how we can leverage that to work for us, economically and culturally. In this episode, we see what made Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine important, and a chef/educator throws down the gauntlet to the new generation.

Europe’s record-shattering heatwave last week contributed to the hottest June ever recorded on earth.  It’s been hot in Hawaiʻi lately as well, although it hasn’t threatened public health. In 2003, a European heatwave killed 70-thousand people. Authorities and residents have learned lessons since then---but in Hawai‘i, how prepared are we for dangerous heat?  University of Hawaiʻi climate expert Chip Fletcher has some answers.

eady availability of local produce is one lasting contribution consumers enjoy, thanks to recent combined efforts of chefs creating cachet and demand, farmers being encouraged to grow and expand offerings, and the counties and other entities that have supported farmers' markets.Credit Noe TanigawaEdit | Remove

Food is a shared national obsession these days, and the way we eat now has its roots in a movement that began in California in the 1970’s.  Increased awareness of fresh and local became the basis for Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine in 1991, and it got us excited about Hawai‘i’s rich food culture.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa looks at where we are, thirty years later.