Empowering Pacific Indigenous Creatives
Welcome to EPIC Wahine
Where we celebrate and empower Pacific Indigenous creativity through community engagement and collaboration.
From the ʻAHA! Mele festival showcasing Kona’s rich mele and moʻolelo to hands-on art and stewardship projects, we create spaces for indigenous voices to shine and for meaningful connections to form.
Join us as we uplift culture, art, and collaboration in Hawaiʻi
ʻAHA! Mele
A series of performances sharing mele (song) and moʻolelo (story) of Kona
Lā Pena, Community Paint Day
Lydia8, in partnership with The IRONMAN Foundation is organizing a mural project that invites IRONMAN attendees and the Kona community to engage and contribute their creativity to a collective masterpiece.
HAWAIIAN
For Jack, being a Hawaiian artist producing in Hawaii is an incredibly complex position to be in, with many points to be considered, all of which appear in his painting. There is responsibility, obligation, passion, and fulfillment in applying his lineage to the work that he creates. In reworking idyllic, postcard depictions of “vintage” Hawaii, he attempts - in some small part - to reclaim old Hawaii’s colonized imagery and make it his own, bringing it back into Hawaiian hands, denying the foreign commercialization of those postcard images, while retaining those images’ depiction of Hawaii’s beauty and culture with recognizable figures and a strong, smooth color palette.
Beyond the reclamation of Hawaiian imagery here at home, Jack also believes in sharing pieces of his culture with outside audiences. At a mural festival in Washington D.C in 2021, Jack inscribed over his piece, “Ka lā hiki ola” - a phrase about optimism, hope, and looking toward the new day.
“I believe that the world could benefit greatly from the teachings of Native Hawaiian culture. Love, respect, spirituality, community, humility, perseverance, patience, and righteousness - these values are what the world needs more of.”
Written by Naz Kawakami
In Hawaiian, kō means to succeed. KŌlab provides an opportunity for non-Hawaiʻi businesses to collaborate with Hawaiʻi non-profits to create educational outreach and volunteer opportunities. This lab will focus on Native Hawaiian practices of resource and cultural stewardship reflective of Hawai'i Island and its diverse communities.
KŌlab
Soul Proprietor Mākeke
A platform for indigenous entrepreneurs to showcase their services and products in a marketplace setting
