Eia Ke Kumu

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.