Kau ʻeliʻeli kau mai, kau ʻeliʻeli ē, 2020
25 minutes and 2 seconds
16:9, color, sound, archival material: Stop TH-3 (1975) public service announcements by Joan Lander featuring Jerry Santos, Robert Beaumont and Sei Serakaku with narration by Hugo Buehring; photographic excerpts from Ē Luku Wale Ē (1997) by Piliāmoʻo, Kapulani Landgraf and Mark Hamasaki; audio recording by Richard Hamasaki of a kanikau written by Kapulani Landgraf and chanted by Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa and Kealiʻi Gora, and paintings (2015-2017) by Hog Child.
Interstate H-3 (H-3) opened in December of 1997, after decades of public controversy and resistance. As part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, the scenic roadway received 1.34 billion dollars in federal funds to link what are now known as Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on the leeward side of Oʻahu, and Kāneʻohe Marine Corps Base on the windward side. Championed by Senator Daniel K. Inouye, the project was exempted from environmental law as a rider on a 1986 Appropriations Bill (H.J. Res. 738), allowing it to cut through the valleys of North Hālawa and Haʻikū.
In 1975, Joan Lander (of Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina) produced a series of public service announcements. These “STOP TH-3” free speech messages were broadcast across the Hawaiian archipelago by local television stations in fulfillment of their legal requirements to provide public service air time. Musicians Jerry Santos and Robert Beaumont of Olomana are featured, as well as Waiāhole kalo farmer, Sei Serakaku. Audio engineer Hugo Buehring provided the narrations.
Artists Mark Hamasaki and Kapulani Landgraf as the collective Piliāmoʻo, photographed the H-3’s construction from 1989 until 1992, when they were barred from accessing the worksite by the Hawai’i State Department of Transportation. Over the course of four years, Piliāmoʻo steadily amassed a kūʻē-archive (counter-archive) comprising thousands of photographic documents.
In opposition to the opening of the H-3, Piliāmoʻo presented an exhibition Ē Luku Wale Ē (Devastation Upon Devastation) (1997) consisting of a photographic essay, a timeline, and a kanikau (funerary chant) written by Landgraf. At the opening reception, educators Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa and Kealiʻi Gora chanted the kanikau as part of the exhibition protocol. Poet Richard Hamasaki later made an audio recording with Kameʻeleihiwa and Gora chanting the kanikau.
Two decades later, members of the group Hog Child illegally accessed and adorned the concrete piers beneath the H-3 with images in aerosol and house paint. Their acts of vandalism reference Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) ancestral knowledge and engage resilient moʻolelo (stories) of Haʻikū valley and nā ahupuaʻa (land divisions) of Koʻolaupoko.
In ʻIkiʻiki of 2020, kekahi wahi visited Kapaʻa Quarry, Windward, Oʻahu. Kapaʻa served as the pre-cast concrete yard for the construction of the H-3. At the quarry entrance a pointed index finger drew a line just above gravel ground, tracing the path of the Interstate progressing from Pearl Harbor-Hickam to Kāneʻohe Marine Corps Base.
