Aha Āina Aloha (2016) and other works

Overview

At the intersection of art and activism, Meleanna Meyer’s practice draws from Hawaiian history, cultural anthropology, Indigenous linguistics, architecture and set design. The monumental two-sided mural Aha Āina Aloha (2016) juxtaposes the ancestral wisdom and living traditions of Native Hawaiians with the cruel ethos of the archipelago’s colonisers. Exhibited in Khorfakkan’s former courthouse, the mural, made in collaboration with five other Kānaka Maoli artists, serves as a starting point for workshops, roundtables and collaborative projects initiated by Meyer. The film Mauna Kea: Sacred Mountain, Sacred Conduct (2020), screened in one of the rooms of Khorfakkan Art Centre, documents local resistance to the construction of an enormous telescope atop one of Hawai’s most hallowed mountains.