On a clear Waimanalo night in 2012, artist Kaili Chun created 24 hours of performance art with help from students and crowds wandering between and around metal monoliths she created — and no building permit.
She occupied Waimanalo Beach with 50 eight-foot, 60-pound steel sculptures, welded in her studio and set on the beach where the ocean air, sand and waves would have their way with them.
It was a pop-up installation on steroids.
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‘VERITAS II’
Sculptural installation and digital prints by Kaili Chun
>> On exhibit: Through Dec. 14; 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays
>> Where: ii Gallery, 687 Auahi St. >> Info: 343-0240 or visit facebook.com/iigallery
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Local folks, students and members of the art community, who heard about the project via the "coconut wireless," watched as the towers stood like sentinels or were toppled by the sea. Chun says they served as a blockade against the driving on the beach that occurs every night. It was a statement that came to fruition eight years after its inception.
Erin Yuasa photographed the scene, and Chun morphed the structures into giant prints on watercolor paper. Hanging in ii Gallery, they are presented alongside the actual sculptures for the "Veritas II" exhibition, which is the steel cells’ next incarnation. The structures for sale could possibly live another life to morph once more in another environment.
The art itself is part of the continuing conversation Chun has with the world. Her thought process is intense; her art embodies the immense energy that enabled her to take first place three times in the Double Roughwater Swim.
Chun’s descriptions of her art are like miniature dissertations. She talks of exploring the notions of containment by others and "our own containment of ourselves as Hawaiians and as humans."
She describes the tensions that persist between Western and indigenous ways of understanding the world, and how they serve as catalysts for demarcating the sculptures when considering the ways each person is shaped and contained. These tensions, she says, also prompt exploration of the boundaries surrounding concepts of "inside" and "outside," and how issues of concealment and revelation are negotiated.
"Who occupies whom?" she asks. "How do we move between the two worlds in which we live? Are we subject to the boundaries defined by others, or do we delineate the boundaries that explicate our situation? The lines are not always so clear-cut."
Chun is one of four native Hawaiian artists, among the 16 native artists honored nationally, to receive the 2013 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation award. Foundation President Lulani Arquette calls Chun the example of a perfect foundation "fellow," citing her exploration of "the tensions between Western and indigenous peoples."
Arquette says she "loves the way Chun transforms spaces, engaging the participants, causing interaction with viewers, allowing audiences to experience, not just look." She calls this new exhibit "a metaphor for Native Hawaiians navigating through political and cultural shifts."
Chun’s bio spans five pages and documents her education, career and accolades. It also includes possibly the most important fact: Chun was an apprentice to master canoe builder and woodworker Wright ‘Elemakule Bowman.
She most recently used her acquired knowledge and skills to create a double-hulled sailing canoe for Pacific Hall at Bishop Museum.
No wonder ii Gallery opening-night fans chanted with unbounded enthusiasm, "She welds, she carves, she inspires — she’s Super Chun!"
