Expansion (land.water.sky) [video]

video
4’43”
2019

Expansion (land.water.sky) looks at the visual language of hyperdevelopment in the Ward neighborhood of Honolulu. The area sits adjacent to Waikīkī and Ala Moana and like much of that stretch of O‘ahu’s south shore, was originally agricultural marshland–used primarily as lo‘i, fish ponds, and salt flats by Kānaka ʻŌiwi–that during colonial urbanization, was shaped into valuable shorefront real estate by filling the land with broken coral and landfill debris. The video examines how Ward’s current architecture, marketing language, and public design leverage elements of nature and cultural history to sell a slick package of mindful luxury that belies a legacy of refuse, extractions, and dislocations left in the wake of moneyed incursions across the land, water, and into the sky.

The video is anchored by a makeshift model of the facade of the Anaha condominiums, whose glassy surface, like the other buildings in the area, reflect and capture blue skies and clouds. The building’s iconic glass bottomed infinity pool, jutting ostentatiously out over a highly trafficked street, is recreated here with a slowly melting block of frozen ocean water (gathered from the waterfront a couple blocks away), a reference to the precarious infrastructure of high rises built upon former marshlands and the rising tides threatening Hawai‘i’s ecosystem. In other scenes, a kite recreation of a Tesla engine flies jerkily off a rooftop in the neighborhood; and a potted kalo (taro) plant made up of photographs of one of the high rises is walked back and forth in front of a billboard sized, historic photograph of lo’i installed along one of the high rises’ walls. The text interspersed in the video is extracted from the developer’s website marketing copy, highlighting their invocation of ecological and cultural notes.

[Contact for video link & password]

Exhibition history:
25@25: A Community of Artists, Visual & Public Art Gallery at California State University, Monterey Bay (2020)
In Plain Sight, Mills College Art Museum (2019)  [online exhibition catalogue]
Expansion (land.water.sky), Commons Gallery, University of Hawai‘i (2019)