VIDEOS
TED TALK: THE CATALYTIC NATURE OF ART
TED TALK BY KAMEA HADAR IN 2013.
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For Hawaiian Airlines in Long Beach California during POW! WOW! Long Beach 2018
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“The piece combines two figures that represent the balancing of ancient traditions and our contemporary urban society. They are both representations of the same person trying to find inner balance. One figure looks down and focuses on her hand and how it gently causes ripples through the dress and interacts and connects her to the background and thus water, while the other looks to the viewer with her hand over her mouth, calling for them to listen to nature.”
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Mural for Gary Galiher Law on Gary Galiher Law Building. Ward Avenue Honolulu, HI.
Summer 2016.
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2 floors, approximately 25′ x 30“. The day that I finished the background I got a call from my wife that we had to rush to the hospital, our daughter was going to be born. For a week the background sat exposed before I came back and added the portrait. The 13 stripes of our country’s flag in black and white along with a speech about racial equality that President Obama delivered in 2008 in Philadelphia:
‘This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren. This belief comes from the unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. For as long as I live, we will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. The idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.’ “
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Mural on Hale Kewalo Apartments in Honolulu, Hawaii for Stanford Carr Development.
Video Directed by Andrew Tran of Redefined Media
HAWAIIAN AIR GROUND SERVICE VEHICLES
Project with POW! WOW! x Fitted x Hawaiian Airlines painting their ground service vehicles including service trucks, push-backs, plane tugs, baggage belt loaders, and baggage carts.
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Collaboration with Defer an a portrait of Bailey Rapozo (Keola’s Rapozo of Fitted, wife) on the side of a large hydraulic service truck. She is an interpretation of the Pualani, the female figure that makes up the Hawaiian Airlines Logo. This Pualani looks up and to the left to not only interact with the plane and its passengers, but also to check out the original Pualani on the tail of the plane. Also, instead of wearing a flower on her ear like the original our Pualani sports a haku which Defer painted. The haku, or Hawaiian Headdress, gives the feeling that it’s a special occasion.
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Defer also collaborated with Jeffery Gress on a deconstructed camo on the opposite side of the truck. Jeff also added his hand-painted lettering and on many of the vehicles. Also working on the project were Jasper Wong, creative director/owner of Fitted Keola Rapozo, Jared Johnston, and Christina Delima. Keola’s famous ‘island camo’ pattern, a camouflage-inspired motif made up of the silhouettes of the Hawaiian Islands was painted over many of the vehicles. The pattern emphasizes how Hawaii is composed of many islands that collectively make up the great state, and how like the pattern Hawaiian Airlines brings all of the islands together. The ‘island camo’ also had a secondary meaning with the usually concealing design instead being used in this case to bring attention to the vehicles. The disruptive pattern highlights Hawaiian Airlines new safety initiatives to avoid onsite accidents and promote worker safety with brightly painted vehicles. Adding to this is the reflective “hunter” or “safety” orange accents, a common accent for hunters camouflage.
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The project aims to highlight how Hawaiian Airlines bridges cultures and people, giving Hawaiian Airlines employees and passengers alike a visual representation of the hub of culture that is modern Hawaii and how Hawaiian Airlines helps to facilitate these cultural exchanges. Much like how POW! WOW! has taken forgotten buildings and brought new life to them with murals, we hope to bring attention and color to the sometimes overlooked machinery, the hundreds of employees working around the clock at the airport, and to promote safety on the runway.
The final installation of POW! WOW!’s three part project with Hokulea and the Polynesian Voyaging Society was a mural created by Kamea Hadar and the young artists of the POW! WOW! School of Art and 808 Urban. Located in the heart of Kakaako on Oahu, home of POW! WOW! Hawaii, the mural depicts Papa Mau Piailug, a master navigator from the island of Satawal, Micronesia. Pialug helped to teach navigators of the Hokulea the art of non-instrumental way finding. He was chosen by his grandfather to learn the art of navigation when he was a only a few years old, and in 1976 when he guided Hokulea on its maiden voyage to Tahiti, he was one of only six navigators of his kind remaining in the world. He has since helped to revive this knowledge, training five Hawaiian navigators to master status in his lifetime, ensuring the survival of the art form. These techniques will be used by Hokulea navigators over the next three and a half years, during which Hokulea and its sister canoe Hikianalia will attempt to sail around the world using nothing but the waves, winds, sun and stars to guide them.
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Searching through photos of Hokulea’s maiden voyage, Kamea Hadar discovered an image of Papa Mau staring towards the horizon with an intense look on his face. The photo immediately spoke to him as a possibility for the main image of the mural. While sitting with Uncle Billy Richards, an original crew member from the Hokulea’s maiden voyage, Uncle Billy shared with Kamea something Mau had once said: “To be a navigator, you have to be fierce.” Kamea then showed Uncle Billy the photo he had chosen. Uncle Billy smiled and said, “That’s the one, that’s the look of someone that would get you home.”
Produced by – Mikey Inouye
Directed by – Vincent Ricafort
Edited by – Reynolds Barney
Sound – Christopher Ahn
Written by – Mikey Inouye, Vincent Ricafort, and Noel Nicholas
Sponsored by – OLUKAI