‘Project Banaba: Hawai'i’ (2024) by Katerina Teaiwa
The preparations for presenting the Hawaiian iteration of ‘Project Banaba’ by Artist Katerina Teaiwa held in the Kingdom of Hawai’i are underway, pending to be presented in 2024.
For the Hawaiian iteration, Teaiwa and curator Yuki Kihara have engaged Hawai’i-based Kanaka Maoli Native Hawaiian artist Joy Enomoto as co-curator of ‘Project Banaba’ to help situate the exhibition within the local context, working closely with Kanaka Maoli, Banaban and Micronesian diaspora communities.
People involved:
Katerina Teaiwa
Artist and Professor Katerina Teaiwa of ‘Project Banaba’ (2017 –)
Katerina Teaiwa is of Banaban (Tabiang, Tabwewa - Rabi), I-Kiribati (Tabiteuea), and African American heritage, born and raised in Fiji. She is a Professor in Pacific Studies in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. She is the author of Consuming Ocean Island: stories of people and phosphate from Banaba and a dancer and visual artist touring Project Banaba, curated by Yuki Kihara. Katerina is currently Vice-President of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies, Chair of the Oceania Working Party of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and Art Editor of The Contemporary Pacific: a journal of Island Affairs. A passionate teacher, she has won several education and outreach awards, including the national 2021 Australian University Teacher of the Year.
https://researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/katerina-teaiwa
Joy Enomoto
Co-curator of ‘Project Banaba: Hawai’i’ (2023)
‘As a Black, Kanaka Maoli, Japanese, Scottish, Caddo and Punjabi visual artist, I engage with issues of climate justice, plantation genealogies and the memory of violence within land and seascapes. Concerned primarily with issues impacting Oceania, my work combines drawing, printmaking, fibre art and photography. Driven by our ancestors, our rivers and our mountains, my process is not an individual practice, and I am committed to collaborating with other artists/writers and communities who are fighting for social justice and the protection of our sacred lands and waters.’ Text from her website https://www.joyenomoto.com/
Enomoto’s work was been featured in numerous publications, among others, including The Contemporary Pacific Journal (2022), published by the University of Hawai'i Press https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752550.
Yuki Kihara
Curator of ‘Project Banaba’ (2017 –)
Co-curator of ‘Project Banaba: Hawai’i’ (2023)
Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Sāmoan descent. Through a research-based approach, her work seeks to challenge dominant and singular historical narratives through various mediums, including performance, sculpture, video, photography and curatorial practice. Kihara is a research fellow at the National Museum of World Cultures in The Netherlands and represents New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.
Kihara has been a curator of Project Banaba by Katerina Teaiwa since its inception in 2017 commissioned and presented at Carriageworks, Sydney.
Gui Taccetti
Principle Installer of ‘Project Banaba’ (2022 –)
Gui Taccetti was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. Since 2009, he has been based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Taccetti’s practice centres on photography, film production, fabrication and installation. His field of expertise ranges from set decoration in major film productions to the fabrication and installation of fine art objects. Amongst his latest projects, he was responsible for the production of all physical assets dispatched to Italy for artist Yuki kihara’s “Paradise Camp” (2020/2022) for the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, as well as being the principle installer for artist Katerina Teaiwa’s “Project Banaba” (2022) at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand.