Exhibitions
Bishop Museum Announces New Original Exhibition, Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red
Bishop Museum announces Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red, the first exhibition to explore multiple uses and understandings of the color red across Oceanic material culture, opening May 2024.
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the State of Hawaiʻi Museum of Natural and Cultural History, announces a new original exhibition coming to its Castle Memorial Building in May: Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red.
Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red is the first exhibition of its kind to gather together material culture of Oceania and articulate the multiple uses and understandings of a single color: RED.
In Hawaiʻi, red is significant. It is present in both everyday and sacred objects, in ʻōlelo (speech) and moʻolelo (stories), and in the names and classifications of nature and place. This exhibition aims to explore how red signifies beyond color. Hues of red transform into notions of redness, notions that color the expression and comprehension of warmth, kinship, rarity, trauma, wealth, power, sacredness, sovereignty, anger, excitement, and beauty.
Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red coincides with the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC), to be held in Hawaiʻi from June 6-16, 2024. FestPAC is the largest gathering and celebration of Indigenous Oceanic peoples, and thus is an important occasion to show how redness can reveal the kinship shared by those who live guided by a mediating, divining, Indigenous Oceania. Drawing from the vast collections stewarded by Bishop Museum along with important loaned objects from around the world, this once-in-a-lifetime exhibit will be curated by Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians) collaborating with Indigenous peoples around Oceania.
Media Preview Opportunity on Thursday, May 23, 2024:
Bishop Museum invites members of the news media to attend an exclusive, pre-opening, closed-door Media Preview of Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red:
- Thursday, May 23, 2024
- 1-4 p.m. HST
- Bishop Museum, Castle Memorial Building
- Please RSVP with Lance Aquino via the contact information above
Interview opportunities:
- Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red Exhibition Curatorial Team including Marques Marzan, Kapalikū Maile, and Kamalu du Preez
- Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red Exhibition Designer DeAnne Kennedy
For more information on Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, and its Mission, please visit BishopMuseum.org and follow its social channels @BishopMuseum.
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.