Kai 海 Hai

Kai 海 Hai (a hybrid of ‘Ocean’ in ʻŌlelo Hawai'i and Mandarin) is an ongoing series of virtual and augmented reality installations that utilize transpacific folklore while remixing ancestral, personal, and speculative narratives from Polynesia to East Asia to explore environmental issues, indigenous and immigrant stories, and diaspora across the Pacific Ocean. In collaboration with Qianqian Ye

3D Render Commissions for Grow Magazine “Back to the Future” Article by Keolu Fox and Cliff Kapono. (Left Image, Above) Ka Wai Ola, Ola Hou - remediation, transformation, and restoration of water and soil at Kapūkakī (Red Hill) + Pu‘uloa (Pearl Harbor). (Right Image) He Wai E Mana - re-envisioning water systems at Kāko‘o ‘Ōiwi in He‘eia

Kai-Hai: 塑 Plastia is a video installation (stills above) that explores The Great Pacific Garbage Patch which contains approximately 80,000 tons of plastic over a 1.6 million-square-kilometer region of ocean linking East Asia to Hawai‘i. Linking these geographies and the deities they have worshiped - from Mazu, goddess of seafarers lost in the ocean; to Haumea, who birthed the Hawaiian islands and is continuously reborn in her offspring - this new work in Kai 海 Hai realizes a Goddexx formed from the need to remediate microplastics from the ocean. She continually gives birth to new children and is reborn each time within them, in order to restore the ocean to its natural state. As plastics threaten our ocean health and all species in the ocean, Plastia is a response to cleansing our ancestral waters, rebirthing new elements of renewal, delivering a new lineage of creation to heal our oceans.

Kai-Hai: 塑 Plastia commission for Mandeville Art Gallery, San Diego as a large scale looped video projection (above) as part of “Nature Scene”, through October 2nd, 2023

Contact me for a link to the full video

Kai Hai: Nakili is an Augmented Reality sculpture and AR filter (demo videos above) which pulls inspiration from the living deity Hina 'opuhala ko'a, goddess of corals and spiny creatures in the ocean, one of the many forms of the goddess Hina, (“Hina of the Coral Stomach”). Nakili positions the corals above water, merging it with a human-like figure, to remind us of our interconnection to it and to all living creatures in the ocean, of which the kānaka maoli are descended from (according to the Kumulipo creation chant).

Iterations of Nakili, as well as the face filter that was developed in conjunction with the AR sculpture, originally shown at the Nake’u Awai fashion show with Aupuni Space in Honolulu, 2021.

A.A.G. (below) is a transpacific deity born from submarine fiber optic cables, and the desire for human connection across the Pacific Ocean. Manifested as a goddexx, A.A.G. is a hybrid of the organic and the inorganic, brought forth from the interconnection of geographies, machines, physical undersea infrastructure, and the deep sea creatures that grow on it’s metal piping. Representing non-linear pathways of communication streams across the ocean, of both histories and future destinations, they can appear in many places and times at once, enabling the flow of the internet across the world. In a dialogue installed on view at epoch.gallery, and at the Gray Area Festival, A.A.G. has brought together two oceanic deities across the Pacific ocean: Mazu 妈祖  (a Chinese sea goddess, spoken by Qianqian Ye) and Hina opuhala ko’a (a Hawaiian goddess of coral reefs, spoken by Tiare Ribeaux). We hear all three in conversation as they confer about the state of humanity and the growth of technology over the past 1000 years. Also on view via the Gray Area Festival Installation of Kai Hai online at: New Art City