Eia Ke Kumu

Date
2021
Authors
Lum, Nanea Jordan
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Drexler, Debra
Hamilton-Faris, Jaimey
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Art
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Abstract
This paper introduces literary resources for education about Hawaiian culture and resistance to settler colonialism and militarism in Hawaiʻi. Eia Ke Kumu, 2021 is a ceremonial creation of artworks that honor the materiality and spirituality of the ‘āina of Mānoa. As a series of paintings and documentation videos, Eia Ke Kumu talks about my creative process as it is related to Hawaiian conceptions of creation. I consider Mānoa, not solely a place for my education, but a Kumu, a teacher of the process of becoming centered spiritually, materially responsible, and navigating through ambiguity. The title roughly translates to: here is the reason; the lesson, the beginning, the teacher, and the main stalk of a tree. This work is my navigation of place, a methodology of making connections, and meaning as a Kānaka artist; a person identifying the politics in existentialism of Hawaiian culture in Hawaiʻi. The title also refers to Nānā I Ke Kumu = Look to the source, a three-volume literary compendium of traditional principles and values of Hawaiian epistemology collected since 1970. These scholars' works of a deeply political origin engage with the foundation of the Hawaiian language as the sustaining element of discourse. The materials of visual language I use articulate (not just passively represent) the cultural compositional conversation with ʻāina—a sense of knowledge coming from a relationship with the Indigenous lifeworlds.
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Art history, Art criticism, Language arts, Ceremonial, Decolonial, Hawaiian, Kapa, Painting, Process
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42 pages
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