Institute of Contemporary Art Miami ICA Miami

There is a wealth of knowledge in the Kanaka Maoli names of the elements, the winds, rains, ocean currents, moon phases, and land formations. Kānaka Maoli ancestral knowledges identify 400,00 akua or elemental forms, each with their own names and elemental functions specific to hundreds of ahupuaʻa, land divisions that generally extend from the mountains to the seas, each embodying the natural processes of growth, decay, and regeneration. The laws of the elements have been deciphered from the art of kilo, intergenerational observation, and forecasting based on these elemental forms and their relationships with each other.

By studying Kanaloa, the deep consciousness of the ocean and ocean people, we can decode the lessons of elemental cartographies that can teach us the reciprocal care we need to sustain this earth. We will look to the possibilities that emerge when Kanaka Maoli ʻike kupuna (ancestral knowledges) focused on abundance is braided with decolonized STEM knowledges to equip us for surviving the changes on this earth that capitalist economies of scarcity cannot. Kanaka Maoli scientists are currently doing that work to bring together these forms of knowledge to adapt traditional knowledgeways to present conditions that will be able to help us thrive intergenerationally.

Kanaka Maoli practitioners see rising tides as the return of Kanaloa, and they are actively engaged in restoration work at loko iʻa (fishponds) and loʻi kalo (taro pondfields) to devise different ways of greeting Kanaloa, from the restoration of stream flows to the fishponds along shorelines, revitalizing polluted estuaries and restoring native ecosystems, to the cultivation of varieties of kalo (taro) with high salinity levels that can be planted along the shoreline. Whales are the carriers of Kanaka Maoli ancestral knowledges, and they play an important part in the restoration of the planet. In this seminar, we will work to bring together ancestral knowledges with modern conditions for resilience in a world where oceanic Kanaka Maoli economies of abundance will continue to thrive into the future.