Surfing, Hawaiiana, and Korean War exhibits at the Bishop Museum this summer

HONOLULU—The Bishop Museum has three exhibits this summer that will take visitors back to uniquely significant times in Hawaii’s past. Hawaiian Hall will have on display the three largest traditional Ku images in the world for the first time in 150 years. A surf exhibit will feature classic surfboards from the Bishop Museum archives. And to commemorate the 60 year anniversary of the start of the Korean War, Bishop Museum will honor the narrative of Korean American artists and those who continue to carry the legacies of the war.

Still Present Pasts: Korean Americans and the “Forgotten War”

The Korean War (June 1950–July 1953) had a devastating effect on Korea and a significant impact on the United States.

On June 26, 2010—almost 60 years to the day after the war’s start—a unique exhibit about the Korean War and its legacies opens at Bishop Museum. Still Present Pasts is a multi-media exhibit that uses art, video, history, and spoken word created by a young generation of Korean American artists to explore the long shadow of the war. The exhibit also features oral narratives of Koreans who lived through the conflict.

The Honolulu appearance of Still Present Pasts has been spearheaded by the non-profit Biographical Research Center, with financial support from the Hawaii Council for the Humanities.

The exhibit will be on display from June 26 through September 12 at the Castle Memorial Building, Second Floor.

Surfing: Featuring the Historic Surfboards in Bishop Museum’s Collection

A thousand years after Hawaiians first paddled longboards in to the ocean, modern wave riders continue the practice we know as surfing. Enjoy this glimpse into the fascinating past of surfing, one of Hawai‘i’s gifts to the world, through historic images from Bishop Museum Archives along with historic surfboards from the Museum’s renowned collection of artifacts. Trace the historical transformation of surfing’s image through the centuries, from Polynesian myths of love to an account of an exotic “amusement” that presented nothing but “horror & destruction,” as well as recollections of surfing as a character-building activity and sometimes the test of one’s romantic interest.

The exhibit will be on display from June 19 through September 6 at the Castle Memorial Building.

E K? Ana Ka Paia: Unification, Responsibility and the K? Images

Bishop Museum, the British Museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum are partnering to bring together the three largest K? images in the world for a historic exhibition this summer. It will be the first time in over 150 years that three traditional K? images of this size and magnitude have been displayed alongside one another.

Since the reopening of Hawaiian Hall in August 2009, Bishop Museum’s K? image has been prominently displayed as a central piece in the Hall. The British Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts both have K? images in their collections. Those two K? will be loaned to Bishop Museum for the duration of the exhibition.

K? is known throughout the Pacific as the god of procreation, prosperity, and warfare. Coinciding with the bicentennial of the unification of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the unification of these K? images provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore issues such as cultural identity, family and community responsibility, political sovereignty, and the role of museums in fostering cross-cultural dialogue.

The exhibit will be on display through October 4 at Hawaiian Hall & J.M. Long Gallery.

Bishop Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha family. The Museum was established to house the extensive collection of Hawaiian artifacts and royal family heirlooms of the Princess, and has expanded to include millions of artifacts, documents and photographs about Hawai‘i and other Pacific island cultures.

Today, Bishop Museum is the largest museum in the state and recognized throughout the world for its cultural collections, research projects, consulting services and public educational programs. It also has one of the largest natural history specimen collections in the world. Serving and representing the interests of Native Hawaiians is a primary purpose of the Museum.

For more information, visit bishopmuseum.org.