About the Exhibition: Revisiting Kealakekua Bay, Reworking the Captain Cook Monument brings together eight artists and collectives to stage speculative interventions in response to the white obelisk commemorating British explorer James Cook at Kaʻawaloa on the shore of Kealakekua Bay along the Kona coast of the island of Hawaiʻi. The underlying aims of this collaborative, slow-moving group endeavor are to revisit an ancestral place and rework a historic monument; honor stories of intergenerational resistance in Hawaiʻi; work through legacies of scientific colonialism in the Pacific; and activate pathways toward remediated futures already in the making. The project culminates in this exhibition of newly commissioned artwork at the Donkey Mill Art Center. The exhibition will be activated through conversations with participating artists and community members and supplemented by a publication.
Revisiting Kealakekua Bay, Reworking the Captain Cook Monument is curated by Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick in conversation with Mina Elison.
Exhibition on View: August 22 – December 12, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 22 from 5:00 – 7:00pm
Participating Artists: Gaye Chan, Kaili Chun, Sean Connelly, Sally Lundburg and Keith Tallett, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, maliewai, Lawrence Seward, and Cory Kamehanaokalā Holt Taum.
Artwork pictured by Lawrence Seward, Study for Inverted Monument (detail), 2019
Mahalo nui loa: This project is organized by Puʻuhonua Society with support from Teiger Foundation, the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the County of Hawaiʻi, the Hiroaki, Elaine & Lawrence Kono Foundation, Hōlualoa Inn, and our community of individual donors.
Warning: Artworks in this exhibition contain mature content. Viewer discretion is advised.
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