Bishop Museum announces new original exhibition, ‘Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red’

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the State of Hawai‘i Museum of Natural and Cultural History, announces a new original exhibition coming to its Castle Memorial Building in May: “Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red.”

“Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red” is the first exhibition of its kind to gather together material culture of Oceania and articulate the multiple uses and understandings of a single color: RED.

In Hawai‘i, red is significant. It is present in both everyday and sacred objects, in ‘ōlelo (speech) and mo‘olelo (stories), and in the names and classifications of nature and place. This exhibition aims to explore how red signifies beyond color. Hues of red transform into notions of redness, notions that color the expression and comprehension of warmth, kinship, rarity, trauma, wealth, power, sacredness, sovereignty, anger, excitement, and beauty.

“Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red” coincides with the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC), to be held in Hawai‘i from June 6-16, 2024. FestPAC is the largest gathering and celebration of Indigenous Oceanic peoples, and thus is an important occasion to show how redness can reveal the kinship shared by those who live guided by a mediating, divining, Indigenous Oceania.

Drawing from the vast collections stewarded by Bishop Museum along with important loaned objects from around the world, this once-in-a-lifetime exhibit will be curated by Kānaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiians) collaborating with Indigenous peoples around Oceania.