Nicole Naone is a Kanaka Maoli, Korean cultural producer with practices spanning the film, sculpture and virtual reality realms. She is a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools (Kapālama Campus) and received her BFA with an emphasis in sculpture from the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa. Naoneʻs most notable cinema credits include producing short film Lahaina Noon (2014) and the multi award winning scripted feature WAIKIKI (2020). As a writer/director she has created art-house short film installations like Mauna Fuji (2014, Honolulu Biennial), Kalaoke o Mākua; (2019, Contact Exhibition),  PIKO: Virtual Reality (2021, Honolulu Museum of Artʻs Hawaiʻi Now Exhibition). Most recently her piece Hawaiians, Unite - a video spot for MTV was nominated for a Webby and reached over 8 million people across all Viacom networks. Naone has contributed her mastery of visual communication to many spaces of Native Hawaiian resistance, most notably in the fight to protect Maunakea, and the repatriation of ʻiwi kupuna (Hawaiian bones) with Hui Iwi Kuamoo.

I descend from a lineage of Kamehameha the Great’s exclusive warrior class, the same warrior class that helped transform the Hawaiian archipelago into a Hawaiian nation. It is this genealogical connection that continues to shape my process and imaginations of both the limitations and potentials of creating art that protects and fights for my community on a variety of levels. Grounded in developing platforms in which art can invigorate news forms of relations between higher forms of thought and community, I aim to convey that the ever-expanding battlefields of the 21st century have not imprisoned Indigenous peoples as merely survival artists - but rather illustrate the dynamic nature in which we actively combat these mutations of colonization.

ʻO NICOLE ALOHALANI NAONE kēia keiki. He keiki a Alika Naone (k), ku‘u mākuakane, he hiapo a Kapiʻolani Kawaiaea (w), ku‘u makuahine. ʻO Alika he keiki a Naalohaelua Naone (k). He hiapo a Lyons Kapiioho Naone (k) a Kahiliula Auoholani (w) ma Waialua, Oʻahu. He keiki a Kawaiolaʻakane (k) a  Kawahineaukai Holi (w). He keiki a Mele Papa (w) a Kamaʻiholio Keawemauhili (k). He keiki a Kahālaupiloo Keawemauhili (k) a Kanaheleaumoku (w). He keiki a Kūʻōpā (k) a Poekalani (w). He keiki a ka niaupio, Kamoaokalani (k) a Kaʻōnohialiʻi (w). He mau keiki niaupio a Kaʻailupeʻa (w) a Kekauhiwamoku (k) ma Maui . ʻO Kekauhiwamoku he keiki a Kānaeʻalae (w) ma Molokaʻi a Kekaulike Kalaninui Kuihonoikamoku