Mahalo to everyone who helped us celebrate our first year in print. We are indebted to a fabulously supportive community, and we look forward to bigger things in 2011! Thanks to Flash, Jonah and the staff at Apartment 3, Christa, Russell and Peligroso.
Starting the dialogue that begins asking questions.
FLUX Hawaii had the unique opportunity to participate in WE VALUE HAWAII: A Day of Art, Music and Dialogue, presented by Creative Modern Activism (CMA HI). It was a full day of festivities, including bike workshops, DIY button-making, printmaking, handmade bookmaking (by yours truly!) and all day entertainment by Bruce Shimabukuro and Brian Ishii, Stephen Agustin, Narwhal, Jon Osorio, Monkey Waterfall, Black Square, The Jumpoffs and Youth Speaks. Straight nutty how many awesome things happened that day. It all centered around a panel discussion with invited politicians (Rep. Marcus Oshiro, Rep. Tom Brower, Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie) and local community leaders: Jon Osorio, Mari Matsuda, BOE member Kim Coco Iwamoto and Ramsey Taum.
A few awesome ladies (Wei Fang, Christa Wittmier, Nicky Maryott and myself) were asked to give testimonial statements. Here’s the statement I gave:
I want to start with a quote from an interview I recently did with slack key guitarist Makana for our upcoming issue:
“Our archipelago is so exotic to people, that that is the hook to bring them here. But people and corporations dress their product in a cloak, so when you go underneath or behind it, there’s no sense of relationship to place for 90 percent of what’s out there. You can only go so far away from your sense of place that it becomes obvious to even the lowest common denominator, non-thinking idiot who just wants to get laid and drink beer. Hawai‘i is even going to stop appealing to them because at some point, we’ll have no value to offer. Once we lose our sense of place I think we kill Hawai‘i. We kill it. To come here and just not feel like you’re here anymore, what a horrible potentiality.”
The arts are essential in establishing our sense of place, so that people visiting our islands experience something profound, unique.
The arts aren’t just important to our future, they are essential if we want to continue being a tourism-based economy. If we want to people to continue coming back year after year, we need to think about ways of creating a unique experience for them here.
People come to Hawaii to experience the culture, they want to be captivated and to be in a place that is unlike the place they came from. I think if we can show how our experiences here infuse our art, music, film, our theater, our luaus, visitors will have a much richer and more memorable experience here in the islands.
If we don’t reevaluate what is valuable about Hawaii – and do everything to perpetuate those things that give us value – people won’t want to come here anymore.
It’s funny that this idea of what is valuable in Hawaii should be the topic of discussion for tonight, because that is exactly what our upcoming issue is about. We’re doing a COMMODITY issue, where we wanted to explore what gives us value as a place, and what makes us so unique?
And we realized it’s our people, it’s our culture itself that makes us unique from anywhere else in the world, our ideas of aloha and taking care of the land. The beaches and the sand and the sun are all great, but Hawaii isn’t really about that because you can get that even in California – I know I spent four years in Malibu and it’s just as beautiful there. The amount of artists and musicians I’ve met doing this magazine – we’ve got some amazingly talented people here, people who actively want to better themselves and the areas around them.
People feel like they don’t have a future here. Someone even as successful as Makana was contemplating moving away to the mainland … To potentially lose someone of that talent level – who, has the capacity to bring in revenue to the State as well as perpetuate Hawaiian culture around the world – that we might lose our Makanas– that is a sad thing.
We definitely need to put more value on the arts, it does need to be supported more, financially, to ensure that there are opportunities for our young, progressive, active, artists and musicians.
I was born here, I grew up here. I don’t want to end up in a place that’s creatively bankrupt because everyone has left. Because ultimately those same people who are thnking about leaving, they are what makes our islands beautiful, they are what gives us value.
We were so honored to to be a part of this event. Many, many thanks to CMA HI for putting this together!
If you couldn’t already tell by the flying hedge-of-grass balloon, FLUX Issue III released with a bang! We bid von voyage to The Jumpoffs, who are off to Los Angeles to record a brand new album; goodbye to the GRLFRNDS, who played their last show (although word on the street is they’ll be back for more!); were surprised by local superstar Braxton Olita of 30 Seconds to Mars; and rocked out with Clones of the Queen, Painted Highways and DJ Capecod. Tequila from Peligroso AND Primo Big Braddahs.
This past weekend, young and old alike partied for peace for the opening of Still Present Pasts // If Not Now When at the Bishop Museum. The exhibition, brought to Hawai’i by local organizers, Creative Modern Activism, spurred discussions about the experience of war and the possibility of peace. Still Present Pasts is the first component of the exhibition. Haunting photos from the Korean War of the division that split the country, and subsequently many families; first-hand video accounts tell the tale that many Koreans only talk about in hushed whispers; portraits of those forced to flee the war-torn country, Korean children scattered across the world and adopted. It’s really a quite moving. Helps us to understand the Korean plight and pain in a whole new light.
And the companion exhibit! In a word: WOW. Great work by local artists. If Not Now When, featured juried art from mainly local artists, organized by Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, curator for thirtyninehotel, and juried by Allison Wong, the executive director of The Contemporary Museum. INNW broaden the conversations about peace and justice even more.
That night the sounds of Paula Fuga, DJ Capecod and Linus could be heard from the FLUX booth, although we were too busy giving out free Sac Sac drinks (these juicy, sweet grape/pear/orange drinks from Palama Supermarket filled with ‘sacs’ of fruit flavor) and taking photos of patrons wearing hanbok. Other entertainment included: Youth Speaks Hawaii, eskae, Kavet & Nomasterbacks, and Korean hip-hop artists Skim and Denizen Kane, who made the ladies swoon.
It was a real good time. Thanks Creative Modern Activism and Ara Laylo for hooking us up! Kamsamnida!
Lulu’s Waikiki went off for the launch party of FLUX Hawaii’s WATER-themed second issue! GRLFRNDS raged on the mic all night long. Hot bodies stomped atop the bar for a sexy swimsuit fashion show by Hurley, RFAVELA and Havaianas, to the tune of a music mash-up by DJ Capecod. There were tons of prizes by Jedidiah, Hurley, RFAVELA and a Primo surfboard giveaway, shaped by Keoki. Patrons snatched up as much scrilla as possible in the whirling money machine! In a nutshell, it was bananas!
