Exhibitions
Bishop Museum Announces New Exhibition, Project Banaba
# Bishop Museum Announces New Exhibition, Project Banaba
Project Banaba commemorates the history of Banaba Island, which was destroyed by environmentally devastating phosphate mining and led to the total relocation of its people.
Honolulu, Hawaiʻi — Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum announces a new exhibit coming to its J. M. Long Gallery in November.
Project Banaba commemorates the history of Banaba Island in the Pacific Ocean, which was destroyed by environmentally devastating phosphate mining during the 20th century. This led to the total relocation of its people in 1945.
Banabans view their ancestral land, the rock of Banaba, as te aba, "the body of the land, and the body of the people." This exhibition will involve three interconnected installations exploring how the people and the land of Banaba were viewed and transformed by imperial phosphate mining and global agricultural interests.
In Project Banaba, Banaban scholar and artist Katerina Teaiwa will bring together rare historical archives and multimedia works that shed light on this little-known history and its ongoing impact on Pacific communities. The exhibition is co-curated by Yuki Kihara, Joy Enomoto, and Bishop Museum's Curator of Archaeology Pūlama Lima and Director of Cultural Resources Healoha Johnston, based on Katerina's archival research, interviews, film, photographs, and performance work, informed by the flows of phosphate rocks, mining workers, and the Banaban people.
The 78th anniversary of the displacement of the Banaban people will be observed on Dec. 15, 2023 during the run of the exhibition.
Project Banaba opens to the public in Bishop Museum's J. M. Long Gallery in Hawaiian Hall on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, and runs through Feb. 18, 2024. Additional information and tickets can be found at: BishopMuseum.org/Project-Banaba.
Media Preview Opportunity on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023
Bishop Museum invites members of the media to attend an exclusive, pre-opening, closed-door Media Preview of Project Banaba:
- Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023
- 1-4 p.m. HST
- Bishop Museum, J. M. Long Gallery
- Please RSVP with Lance Aquino via the contact information above
Interview opportunities:
- Banaban Scholar and Artist Katerina Teaiwa
- Exhibition Co-curator Yuki Kihara
- Exhibition Co-curator Joy Enomoto
- Bishop Museum Director of Cultural Resources and Exhibition Co-curator Healoha Johnston
- Bishop Museum Curator of Archaeology and Exhibition Co-curator Pūlama Lima
About Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the State of Hawaiʻi Museum of Natural and Cultural History
Bishop Museum’s mission is to inspire our community and visitors through the exploration, celebration, and perpetuation of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. The Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in memory of his wife Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a royal descendant of King Kamehameha I. Today, the Museum thrives as an educational center for the community and is widely regarded as the world’s premier institution for Hawaiian and Pacific content.
Bishop Museum’s vast collections of more than 25 million objects and specimens represent nine disciplines and include more than 22 million biological specimens, over 2 million cultural objects, 115,000 historical publications, and 1 million photographs, films, works of art, audio recordings, and manuscripts. These collections tell the stories of the cultures and biodiversity of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific as well as the proud legacy of scholarly research spanning 130 years.
Bishop Museum proudly serves more than 200,000 visitors each year, including 20,000 children on school visits. Guests are encouraged to pre-plan their trip to #HawaiisMuseum with its free digital guide, available through Bloomberg Connects.
To learn more about the Museum’s research, collections, exhibits, and programs, visit BishopMuseum.org, follow @BishopMuseum on Facebook and Instagram, visit Bishop Museum’s YouTube channel, or call (808) 847-3511. Bishop Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Bishop Museum is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer, and welcomes applicants from the military, veterans, and those with disabilities. Learn about careers at Bishop Museum at BishopMuseum.org/Careers and on its LinkedIn page.
Bishop Museum Press is Hawaiʻi’s oldest book publisher and one of the first scholarly publishers in the Western Hemisphere, and has published over 1,200 titles and distributed over 1 million books in 72 countries worldwide. Bishop Museum hosts a restaurant and gift shop on campus, Tūtū’s Place by Highway Inn and Shop Pacifica by Nā Mea Hawaiʻi.