In the nearly fifty years of offering our granting program to humanities programs in Hawaiʻi, HIHumanities has had the pleasure of supporting a diverse experience of programming in our islands. We have granted funding support to a myriad of projects from documentaries to exhibitions to podcasts to walking tours. We are so looking forward to embracing more of the compelling and complex programs you are imagining, but here you can take a look at just a few past projects we have supported through our granting program
Sending Aloha Abroad: Hawai‘i’s Peace Corps Experience 2011 (Public Humanities Grant)
HIHumanities supported production of the documentary film, Sending Aloha Abroad, which tells the story of the Peace Corps, its place in Hawai‘i history, and the role our state and residents played in shaping the program. The Peace Corps ran a training program from 1962 to 1972 on the island of Hawaiʻi. This documentary follows that experience and gives us a chance to learn more about time in our history we do not often learn about or discuss.
Awarded to: Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Hawai‘i
Amount: $5,000
Crossing Cultures: The Art of Manga in Hawai‘i 2013 (Public Humanities Grant)
The medium of manga (Japanese comics) thrives in Hawaiʻi, so it only makes sense to create an exhibit that helps audiences dig deeper into the art of manga. HIHumanities had the pleasure of supporting the making of this exhibition, Crossing Cultures: The Art of Manga in Hawaiʻi, on the art, culture, and history of manga, which is known for its dynamic graphics covering a diverse range of genre–and brought together seven Hawai‘i-produced manga that explore the varied cross-cultural local sources that influenced the narratives and styles of these works.
Awarded to: Windward Community College
Amount: $3,559
Mōhala Hou Ke Kapa: Kapa Blossoms Anew 2013 (Public Humanities Grant)
Kapa making is an integral part of material culture in the Pacific. The practice of this art became less common with the importation of western-style textiles. In recent years, kapa artists have grown in number and in practice. HIHumanities supported Mōhala Hou Ke Kapa: Kapa Blossoms Anew, which was paired with a symposium and offered community educational activities and featured the ancient art of Hawaiian kapa-making.
Awarded to: Maui Arts & Cultural Center
Amount: $6,000
The Hoʻomaka Hou Research Initiative Online Fishhook Database 2014 (Preservation & Access Grant)
Bishop Museum houses some of the most extensive archaeological collections in the Pacific. Keeping track of that collection is a vital part of providing access to the wider public. HIHumanities was pleased to give a grant for the development of an online open-access database consisting of 2,769 Hawaiian fishhooks recovered in the 1950s from two key archaeological sites–Waiʻahukini and South Point Dune.
Awarded to: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
Amount: $5,000
Walk #5: The Living Archive 2017 (Public Humanities Grant)
We’ve all witnessed the rapid changes of many parts of our islands over the last few decades. It is important to remember what might be buried just below the surface. HIHumanities supported the creation of a living history walking tour and multimedia experience that connects personal narratives and place-based histories from UH Mānoa’s Romanzo Adams Social Research Library Collection (RASRL) with specific locations in Kaka‘ako. The RASRL Collection contains ten essays about Kakaʻako, written by undergraduate sociology students at UH Mānoa between the 1920s and 1970s. Some of these student authors were Kakaʻako residents at the time of writing, while others were outsiders recording their observations. Themes explored are gentrification, displacement, urbanization, and generational change within Kakaʻako’s cultural, historical and physical landscape. By providing greater public access to archival materials and other diverse histories of the neighborhood, 88 Block Walks aims to remove the lens through which landowners and developers present Kaka‘ako’s narrative to the public and to invite the community to create their own.
Awarded to: Interisland Terminal
Amount: $10,000
Experience: Hawai‘i’s Life Stories 2018 (Public Humanities Grant)
The Center for Oral History’s archive has been collecting audio recordings of our stories here in the islands for decades. HIHumanities was very excited to support the development of a pilot program, which consisted of 30 podcasts using the Center for Oral History’s repository of recordings organized into six themed-series based on the importance and relevance to our lives in Hawai‘i. The three-minute podcasts make the oral histories more accessible to our communities. You can listen to these podcasts and see some wonderful photographs, like the one above of an interviewee sitting on his porch in Honokaʻa, Hawaiʻi in 1996, when you visit the center’s Youtube channel.
Awarded to: University of Hawai‘i
Award: $10,000