Kūkulu — Mauna Kea Education and Awareness

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ABOUT

Kūkulu - The Pillars of Mauna ā Wākea is a traveling exhibition featuring: Art, Merchandise, Music and Messages of the Mauna Kea Movement. Kūkulu serves as an platform to teach, to share and to inspire the community to stand as pillars for this sacred mountain through visual arts, workshops, presentations, events, and gatherings.

MKEA has committed to a community vision of creating an unique, interactive, traveling art exhibit Kūkulu; to be a pillar to set the tone and the vibration that is encompassed in the Hawaiian values, and the ʻIke Kupuna or ancestral teachings, that will inspire while educate. Programs offered feature talk story sessions and presentations with cultural practitioners, kiaʻi or water protectors, educators and community members sharing experiences with Native Hawaiians, local communities, residents and visitors alike.

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vision

The vision and design of the space is modeled after the slopes of Mauna Kea where the stance to protect the sacred mountain took place. The space serves as a puʻu honua, a sanctuary, a hālau, training center, a kauhale, a gathering place The piko or foundational center of the exhibit space includes an ahu or traditional altar and actual art pieces owned and utilized by the kiaʻi or protectors. All art pieces have been carefully selected as each piece embodies the best and the highest values, skills and efforts of the Mauna Kea Movement. Each step of creating the exhibit was executed with appropriate prayers, chants, offerings and protocols.

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ObjectiveS

1) Educating and inspiring the community through workshops, presentations, events, gatherings

2) Serving as a template for interactive exhibits focused on the community and the arts

3) Embodying the spiritual and cultural pillar for the implementation of protocol and conduct as witnessed on the mountain through a re-creation of the movement in exhibit form.

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exhibits

Enduring Action Across Ocean, Mountain and LanD - santa barbara

On January 20, MKP UCSB held the opening event for Kūkulu: Enduring Action Across Ocean, Mountain and Land, the 16th installment of the Mauna Kea Education and Awareness traveling Kūkulu exhibit. A lot of love and labor went into Kūkulu and displaying the contributed art from Barbareño Chumash Tribal Council of Santa Barbara, the Winnemem Wintu, the Chumash Syuxtun, the Ohlone people, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and Mauna Kea Education and Awareness.

Thank you to Seventh Generation for sponsoring this event. Thank you to our wonderful speakers and attendees of the night: Barbareño Chumash Tribal Council of Santa Barbara, Chumash film director Spenser Jaimes of Syuxtun, UCSB Students for Justice in Palestine and the UCSB Divest Coalition. Thank you to Iaorana Te Otea for an amazing performance and Spenser Jaimes for sharing his film ‘Connected By Water.’ Thank you to the IVCC for letting us use your space. And thank you to everyone who joined us for the evening in community to celebrate and honor the pillars who stand, and continue to stand for, sacred Mauna Kea in the Kingdom of Hawai’i.