Bishop Museum Launches Endowment Campaign and Announces First Endowed Chair

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum is pleased to announce the launch of its endowment campaign with its first endowed chair, The Wayne Pitluck and Judith Pyle Curator for Cultural Resilience, to be held by Bishop Museum Cultural Advisor, Marques Hanalei Marzan.

The Wayne Pitluck and Judith Pyle Curator for Cultural Resilience chair is the first of many opportunities across Bishop Museum to be offered for naming in perpetuity, building on the Museum's legacy of work accomplished over 130 years in many fields of research and practice.

"2021 will mark the threshold of rebirth for Bishop Museum as our community races to endow centers, programs, and chairs to pursue the urgent work at hand: healing our 'āina and oceans, preventing massive biodiversity loss, and supporting cultural resilience in the face of climate change," said Melanie Ide, Bishop Museum president and CEO. "To know that this critical position will be supported today and exist in perpetuity will ensure that Bishop Museum can fulfill its mission for generations to come."

Wayne Pitluck is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bishop Museum and founder of the Law Firm of Pitluck, Kido & Aipa. He is also Co-Founding Director of Hauʻoli Mau Loa Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of Awaiaulu. Judith Pyle is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation, an Emeritus Trustee of the Honolulu Museum of Art, and a member of the Board of Directors of Hale Kipa. Together, they have supported numerous Hawaiian community and cultural organizations including the University of Hawaiʻi Hawaiʻinuiākea, the School of Hawaiian Knowledge, Eddie and Myrna Kamae's Hawaiian Legacy Foundation, the Manoa Heritage Center, KUPU, the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame, and the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

"We love and care deeply about the host culture of Hawaiʻi and the value of indigenous knoweldge, and understand how important this curator position is for its perpetuation and advancement," said Pitluck. "This is a transformational step in our collective, continuing work to preserve and protect critical cultural knowledge and practices."

Marques Hanalei Marzan has worked in Bishop Museum's Ethnology department for nearly 20 years and has a special knowledge of its incomparable collections. He studied at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa with a concentration in Fiber Arts, and is trained in Hawaiian protocol and recognized as Kahuna Kākalaleo from Hālau Mele, school founded by Kumu John Keola Lake. He is Bishop Museum's Cultural Advisor and leads its cultural knowledge advisory group, Hui 'Imi'ikepono.

The naming of this endowed chair occurs in conjunction with the award of a major grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build a "Pacific Pipeline" of curators and caretakers trained with an indigenous perspective.

Bishop Museum's Ethnology Collection consists of over 77,000 items housed in eight collections areas. It is the largest collection of Hawaiian materials in the world, and has deep representation from Polynesia, particularly Sāmoa; Melanesia, including Papua New Guinea; and Micronesia with significant collections from Kiribati.

Bishop Museum's Library & Archives contains one of the richest and most varied collections of published and unpublished works related to Hawai'i and the Pacific in the world. It has over 2 million items, housed in seven collections areas, with the largest archival collection of early Hawaiian materials in the world, including historical materials from the 1800s and early 1900s, Hawaiian language materials, and early Pacific collections. It's ali'i collections represent Pauahi (Kamehameha family materials), Ruth Ke'elikōlani, Queen Emma, Kapi'olani-Kalaniana'ole, Princess Ka'iulani, and Queen Lili'uokalani.

While Bishop Museum has continued to care for these collections, much of which was built over the early and mid-20th century, support for their activation and growth through expanded research, documentation, exhibition, and sharing has been significantly resource-constrained.

"For two generations, the caretakers of these treasured cultural materials have thoughtfully continued their work, but not been funded in such a way as to thrive, or honor the potential offered by the wealth of material under Bishop Museum's stewardship," said Ide. "During this time, the Hawaiian renaissance managed to steadily strengthen its language and cultural practices. The desire for knowledge-sharing and knowledge-generation from an indigenous perspective has continued to increase, and have global relevance. It's time that Bishop Museum's role and function as a museum serving its community, local and global, be realized."

"The Museum's mission to perpetuate the natural and cultural heritage of Hawai'i and the Pacific cannot be fulfilled if its resources lie untouched, static, behind closed doors, and in the dark," said Marzan. "It takes people to bring light to collections, and knowledge to life. Bishop Museum's highest priority is therefore to expand and fuel its knowledge core — supporting the people who perform research, care for collections, and pursue cultural knowledge. I am honored to continue our important mission and help share Bishop Museum's collective knowledge, and living resources, with our global community."