In partnership with the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA), the Museum Without Walls Arts Education Initiative is a new grant program focused on increasing access to arts education in Hawaiʻi. It supports residencies focused on the fine arts targeted to reach participants and communities that experience barriers or challenges to accessing arts education. This initiative compliments the Artists in the Schools program, to support arts education experiences outside of school for all ages – from keiki to kūpuna. The residency is a partnership between the Artistic Teaching Partner from SFCA’s Artist Teaching Partners Roster and a community organization. The residency includes a focus on increasing participants’ appreciation of, and engagement with, works of art in the Art in Public Places (APP) Collection.

HCF awarded 10 grants totaling $72,828.17 for this program to support the following residencies during the period 4/1/2024 – 12/31/2024:
Ashiya Carter – Boys & Girls Club of Hawaiʻi – Kapaʻa Clubhouse $8,000
5, 6, 7, Create!, Kauaʻi
The residency will include dance and music. Youth will discuss and interpret the art piece Pondering the Truth by Joey Chiarello. The group of youth will collaborate to create a narrative story and choreography to express the ideas that come from the discussions of the art. This program will meet twice a week for five weeks during the Boys and Girls Club’s Summer Intersession, totaling 10 sessions.

Bonnie Sol Hahn - Koana Cultural Community $8,000
Introduction to Printmaking, Hawaiʻi Island
The residency for the rural Mountain View community will use and interpret Margaret Barnaby's woodblock prints. The residency will cover various printmaking methods focusing on relaying the natural world. Printmaking techniques will include mono printing, collage printing, and printmaking using natural materials including leaves. The residency will be open to ages 8 and up. There will be an art opening event for the students and their families, and the works will be displayed for the community to appreciate.

Create With Clay Hawaiʻi Inc., Rayna Galati - Pālama Settlement $8,000
Palama Settlement Kupuna Clay, Oʻahu
The residency will be held once a week over 9-months to engage the kūpuna community at Pālama Settlement and the surrounding Kalihi Palama area. Sessions will begin with a class discussion about, Hawaiian Images by the ceramicist Sayoko Kay Mura. Clay projects will include printing on clay with ʻohe kapala, creating planters with Hawaiian flowers, ipu, honu islands, pueo, coral reefs, and many other elements of Hawaiian culture and life as seen on the mural. Pālama Settlement will host an exhibition of the work created during the program. Kūpuna will be able to discuss their work with attendees.

Fatiha Kheddaoui - Residential Youth Services and Empowerment $7,816.61
Art residency with Ryse Hawai'i youth and young adults experiencing homelessness, Oʻahu
The residency will engage two groups of at-risk youth and young adults experiencing homelessness. The residency will focus on two themes and associated art pieces in the APP collection. The first cycle will examine artists’ use of materials to render ideas and feelings, like hopes and dreams. Participants will build technical skills in fiber arts. In the second cycle, participants will use a familiar tool in their pocket, their phone. They will learn basic photography skills through guided phone and land art practices. The residency will include visits to Capital Modern and Honolulu Printmakers.

Honolulu Theatre for Youth - Better Tomorrows - The Towers at Kuhio Park $6,000
Sharing Our Stories, Oʻahu
The residency will engage young residents of Kuhio Park Towers in Kalihi, ages 7-12. The inspiration for this residency is the sculpture The Storyteller at Kapalama Elementary School by Kay Mura. Participants will dramatize stories inspired by the artwork and related to their ethnicities to build pride in themselves, and enhance their collaborative and expressive abilities. The program will include visiting the artwork and creatively investigating themes through drawing, pantomime, and storytelling. Participants will create and rehearse short presentations based on stories collected or created. The residency will culminate with a presentation to family, friends, and the community.

Julie Matheis - Hale Mahaolu $8,000
Connecting Kūpuna through the Arts, Maui
The residency will be a partnership with Hale Mahaolu to provide 12 visual arts sessions to senior citizens in two adjacent low-income housing complexes. Six sessions will be collaborative to build and strengthen their community by working together. The created paintings, chess sets, and checker boards will be displayed in areas where residents can interact and come together over this finished artwork. Another six sessions will focus on independent sketching and watercolor painting, to promote personal artistic growth.

Kayti Lathrop - Kilauea Neighborhood Association $8,000
Mo’oleleo Mural Magic, Kauaʻi
In partnership with the Kilauea Neighborhood Association, a public mural making residency will engage a core group of up to 30 community members, keiki to kūpuna, who are interested in the process of mural making from conception to completion. They will design and create a collaborative place-based mural in the heart of Kilauea, inspired by several chosen works of art, sense of place, history, and culture, and understanding of the essence of their community. The residency will also engage a local school through field trips and provide community workdays to engage others in the creation of the mural. This residency will culminate in a celebratory gathering where participants formally unveil and gift the mural to the community, engage with others in talk story, and share their process, experience, and meaning and intention of the mural’s design.

Lotus Arts Foundation – Alakaʻi o Kauaʻi Charter School $8,000
Rhythmscapes: Creating harmony through motion derived from art, Kauaʻi
The residency will engage participants to interpret works of art to formulate stories created from blending all the participants findings. The participants of this residency will be the Alakaʻi of Kauaʻi Charter School learning community, including staff, students, and their families. Participants of this residency will ultimately create a performance art piece consisting of dance and percussion based on their collaboratively created story that is derived from their understandings and interpretations of the art piece Boy With Goldfish – For Sight, by John Thomas.

Sheanae Tam - Ulu Aʻe Learning Center $8,000
Kūlewa, Oʻahu
The Kūlewa Summer Art Program will be an interactive and engaging experience through art and exploration for Ulu Aʻe Learning Center’s students. This 8-week art exploration summer program will engage students through huakaʻi to ʻāina-based sites to learn about specific places within the ahupuaʻa. They will create visual arts, mixed media, and original compositions directly related to each organization/ʻāina site visited. The residency will engage 8 groups of keiki from Ulu Aʻe Learning Center and provide 16 art workshops. At the end of the program, the students' artwork will be installed at the respective sites that inspired them, showcasing their voices and expressions. It will conduct a tour for the community to visit these sites.

Tamara Moan - The Plaza at Kāneʻohe $3,011.56
Collage Your Life, Oʻahu
The residency will give senior participants an opportunity to explore and express life experiences through the medium of collage. Through sharing and examination of various collage works in the SFCA collection, including Sun by Bernard Fukushima, Yaddo-Garden by Tad Miyashita, and North Shore by Edna Lau-Chen, participants will discuss composition, value, color, shape, and line as well as art historical development of the medium and its contemporary expression. Participants will give visual voice to their experiences and insights while exploring materials and media in a way that creates a cohesive visual statement or story.

Interested in learning more about the Museum Without Walls program? Contact Elise von Dohlen at evondohlen@hcf-hawaii.org.