Lehuauakea discusses kapa-making within the context of their life and interdisciplinary creative practice. Video courtesy of Nia Tero Foundation, 2021. Lehuauakea is a Native Hawaiian (Kanaka ʻŌiwi) interdisciplinary artist and barkcloth-maker who works with ancestral organic materials in contemporary ways to highlight narratives of Indigenous environmental stewardship, an evolving Kanaka ʻŌiwi identity, and the teachings held in cultural mythologies and cosmologies. By building a personal relationship with traditional techniques and materiality, Lehuauakea breathes new life into pattern symbolism used for generations and preserves cultural memory rooted in place-based practices. Grounded by ancestral modality while advancing the medium to unconventional, innovative, and tactile forms, including hand-stitched mixed-media textiles, large-scale installation, and paintings on kapa, Lehuauakea builds on these cultural knowledge systems, ensuring the perpetuation of these modes of Indigenous storytelling.
