The Public Art Podcast

TALK STORY #3: Skippy Hau & Dean Tokishi

In this episode, Dean Tokishi of the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission and Skippy Hau of the State of Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources talk story for our new StoryCorps DIY project.
Learn more at https://www.smalltownbig.org/story.html

TALK STORY #2: Roselle Bailey & Anuhea Yagi

In this episode, Student of Hawaiian Life Ways Anuhea Yagi sits with Kumu Hula Roselle Keli‘ihonipua Bailey of Ka’Imi Na’auao O Hawaii Nei Institute in Paukukalo, Maui to talk story.
Learn more at https://www.smalltownbig.org/story.html

TALK STORY #1: Kepā Maly & Lopaka White

We are currently piloting a new project to help determine our community's capacity for building a place-based story, creating a story bank and inspiring/ motivating usage, practice and application, with the long-term goal of creating an oral histories archive by and for the larger community. 
In this first episode, Lopaka White of the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission sits with Kepā Maly, Cultural Historian & Resource Specialist and Executive Director of Lāna'i Culture & Heritage Center at the home of Lopaka's parents in Hilo, HI. You can just barely make out the excited chatter of family in the background as Lopaka and Kepā share stories about Kahoʻolawe, Lāna'i, Wailuku and Aloha as a privilege - not a right. 
Learn more at https://www.smalltownbig.org/story.html

Episode #4: Andy Behrle

Get to know internationally-acclaimed light art phenom Andy Behrle, who led Wailuku's SMALL TOWN * BIG ART program's very first community collaboration in the Fall of 2019. Following four months of project development, Andy worked with dozens of community members to research, reimagine and refine a light installation depicting a stained glass window from St. Anthony’s Church before it was lost to a devastating fire in 1977. Through hours of footage collected at different points of the Wailuku River, panes of glass were replaced with visions of water. Inspired by ʻōlelo Ma ka hana ka ‘ike (in working, one learns), the piece was on view for one night only, projected onto the historic ʻĪao Theater, yet has lived on as an exemplary moment of Wailuku community building, historic preservation and outstanding public art. Learn more at https://www.smalltownbig.org/behrle.html.

Episode #3: Michael Takemoto

A visual artist, Associate Professor, Humanities Department Chair and Visual Arts Program Coordinator at University of Hawaiʻi Maui College, Michael Takemoto's November 2020 ʻAlalā Renaissance brought pre-registered, socially-distanced artists together in Wailuku, HI to insert hundreds of brightly colored chalk ʻalalā silhouettes throughout town in an expression of hope, rebirth and healing. “I want people to realize what a powerful tool the arts are. Not only the visual arts, but spoken art; it’s all about the human experience,” shares Takemoto, “looking to the ʻalalā and their plight kind of reflects on our own experience now. We’ve been locked up for - I don't know how many months - and we see that not only are the ʻalalā fragile but so are human beings, so it’s a bigger idea not only of them but of us as well. Relating one person to another, relating our history, our mana'o, from one generation to another and how we hope to perpetuate this and continue this art for our community.” Learn more at https://www.smalltownbig.org/takemoto.html

Episode #2: Jessica Bodner

Meet sculptor Jessica Kay Bodner, a hybrid Hawaii-Montana-based artist specializing in woven steel vessel forms reminiscent of archeological artifacts. From large nautilus forms to abstract gestures, metal is twisted and hewn to create woven thickets where light and shadow pass through creating an interplay between the natural backdrop, the changing seasons and direction of the sun. Learn more about her ST*BA piece ​Hīnaʻi (December 2019) at https://www.smalltownbig.org/bodner.html.

Episode #1: Amanda Joy Bowers

Recorded in July 2021, Amanda shares her experiences creating the Wailuku Town public artworks Resemble The 'Alalā (February 2019), Pō Meke‘au (December 2019) and Haʻahaʻa (June 2021), all of which can be found at https://www.smalltownbig.org/art.html.