POW!WOW!

Jun 1

Written By Nicole Naone

Centered around a week-long event in Hawaii, POW! WOW! has grown into a global network of artists and organizes gallery shows, lecture series, schools for art and music, mural projects, a large creative space named Lana Lane Studios, concerts, and live art installations across the globe.

The central event takes place during Valentine’s Day week in February in the Kaka’ako district of Honolulu, and brings over a hundred international and local artist together to create murals and other forms of art. The festival is expanding to cities and countries such as Taiwan, Long Beach, Israel, Singapore, Jamaica, Washington D.C., Guam, New Zealand, Germany and more.

Learn more

Featured

THE BIKINI AND BIKINI

Currently, the bikini continues its tradition of surfing waves of toxicity, as a symbol for the over sexualization and objectification of female pro-surfers. This site specific installation holds a cornered space of silence for the history of Bikini and the bikini.

PIKO

Filmmaker Christopher Kahunahana, Kumu Hula Lanakila Mangauil and Artist Nicole Naone; take their protection of Maunakea to the Honolulu Museum of Art with a fully immersive installation.

HAWAIIANS, UNITE.

Hawaiians Unite is a moving, short film made for MTV Entertainment Studios’ AAPI Heritage Month. It was created and directed by native Hawaiian filmmaker Nicole Naone. The idea derived from 18th century Hawaiian history, a time of warring chiefdoms between the islands.

WAIKIKI

WAIKIKI is the first fictional feature by a Native Hawaiian produced through the Sundance Labs, and historically one of the only dramatic feature films from a Hawaiian director.

BEING

“Being” is Naoneʻs largest wooden sculpture to date. It has been displayed at the University of Hawaii Manoa, The Waikiki Park Hotel, as well as the The Garage.

MASS SERIES

The mass series existed as a means to process to a few life events occurring simultaneously in the Spring of 2010.

MAUNA FUJI

This video was included in a site-responsive multi-media installation for the KJ Baysa curated exhibition "Mauna Kea" as a part of the Honolulu Biennial selects program.

KALAOKE MĀUKA

In this site specific installation, Nicole Naone pairs footage of the 1983 Mākua Valley evictions with oli corresponding to its ahupuaʻa, with memorization and a loud voice being key elements to the art oli, Naone presents them perversely via another colonizer art form- Karaoke.

SURFBORT

A resigned surfboard. Touching on the language of change specific to Hawai’i, these pieces present a structuring of organic materials into faceted forms. Through them the subtleties of progress are presented.

WOULD

A table that holds things below its surface. Function dictated by negative space. A carton of cigarettes, a sculpture by a friend, a flocked baby hammer, condom three pack, a salt and pepper shaker, a magazine, a tube of lip gloss - they live here in comfort because they’re supposed to.

POW!WOW!

COMFORT

Oiran (花魁) – high-ranking courtesans of the feudal period in Japan – wore tall, lacquered koma-geta or mitsu-ashi (literally, "three legs") when walking in a parade with their attendants.

Nicole Naone