This Land: Art Writing in Hawai‘i

The series of workshops aimed to engage participants in a reciprocal passion for the land and justice through diverse forms of art writing and publishing. Participants included researchers, writers, artists and art students based in Hawai‘i.

Over the course of three days, participants were introduced to Afterall’s publishing practice in a roundtable format, had a chance to discuss different approaches to write art hi/stories rooted in place and to experiment with writing exercises aimed at decentring anthropocentric perspectives.

Session 1: Bringing Things to the Table
We introduced Afterall's different strands of publications. Participant had a chance to introduce themselves and their interests, and to build connections. Each participant was asked to bring an object as a prompt to articulate their relationship with (art) writing and/or with the land/environment.

Session 2: Writing Art Histories In/Out of Place
In this session, we sought to rethink how art histories can emerge out of a deep engagement with place, local histories and neighbourly relations. Participants grappled with the following critical questions: who do we write about and who do we write for? Who is in our neighbourhood and how do we reach them? We also asked them to identify within their own contexts different sources and approaches, including: oral history and storytelling, autoethnography, multilingual practices and translation etc.

Session 3: Land Writing
The session was designed to explore non-anthropocentric forms of writing through a rerouting of our senses and imagination. Each participant was asked to engage with a specific piece of land/environment and produce a short writing from the point of view of the land/environment. We asked: how is this land doing? If this land is a body, what has it experienced and witnessed? If we listen to its stories, what forms of healing and reparation do they suggest?

As part of the Hawai‘i Triennial ALOHA NŌ