The Hawaii Triennial 2025 at HoMA Reimagines Resilience with “ALOHA NŌ”

The Hawaii Triennial 2025 (HT25), “ALOHA NŌ,” is open across 13 sites in O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, and Maui through May 4. The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) is spotlighting eight of the activation’s 49 participating artists and collectives—each one offering newly commissioned works that reflect on the urgent and expansive theme of “aloha.” Curated around the notion of “ALOHA NŌ”—meaning “truly, indeed, love”—this year’s edition invites audiences to [re]consider their understandings of love, solidarity, care, and transformation. At HoMA, the theme is explored through a lens of womanhood as a site of resilience and vulnerability, healing and confrontation. 

“With these artists at the Honolulu Museum of Art, the curators have developed a theme around womanhood as both central to family, healing, and community, as well as the target of power and administrative control,” said Tyler Cann, HoMA’s senior curator of modern and contemporary art.

Upon arrival to HoMA, visitors encounter Rose B. Simpson’s A’gin on the museum’s front lawn—a commanding ceramic-and-steel sculpture of two stacked figures that embody respect (“a’gin” in the Tanoan language) and reflect Simpson’s commitment to Indigenous cultural preservation and environmental consciousness. Inside the museum, Teresita Fernández’s Volcano (Cervix) offers a meditation on systemic violence and ecological collapse. Crafted from solid charcoal and black sand, the artist reimagines the islands of the Caribbean as a single cervix-like form, invoking histories of colonial exploitation, eugenics, and ecological destruction.

Hayv Kahraman also weaves layered narratives of loss and regeneration in her installation Gamla and Barghouth (The Louse and the Flea), inspired by Iraqi folklore and Hawaiian ecology. Kahraman spent time researching endangered native species at the Bishop Museum, incorporating symbols like the ōhiʻa lehua tree and endemic snails to frame grief as a space of restoration and resilience.

Portraiture and community interconnection then come alive in Gisela McDaniel’s vivid new oil paintings, accompanied by audio recordings of her subjects—Guahan (Guam) activists and healers—sharing their personal and political experiences. As an American artist of CHamoru descent, who regularly highlights Indigenous traditions as sites of both tenderness and resistance, the work remains true to her creative practice and ethos. 

A spiritual and genealogical exploration also unfolds in Al Lagunero’s paintings, created during a residency at the Manoa Heritage Center—formerly the home of Charles Montague Cooke Jr., the son of HoMA’s founder. Through his work, Lagunero reconnects with his great-grandmother, a traditional healer, and offers a deeply personal meditation on Hawaiian cultural continuity. Bali-based artist Citra Sasmita challenges myths surrounding Balinese womanhood and ritual through her Timur Merah Project XIV: Tribe of Fire. Her richly symbolic work centers the role of fire in rites of passage and women’s pivotal roles in maintaining cultural balance and spiritual equilibrium.

Meanwhile, Kanitha Tith presents an intimate suite of wire sculptures and watercolor paintings, crafted through slow, meditative processes that evoke freedom and memory. Drawing from her experiences in Cambodia’s independent cinema scene and collective memory, Tith’s art oscillates between figuration and abstraction. Culminating the HoMA presentation is Edith Amituanai’s poignant film Vaimoe, screening on loop in Gallery 14. Following her aunt’s return to Samoa after decades abroad, the film reflects on diasporic longing, cultural transformation, and the shifting landscapes of memory and belonging.

Together, the artists at HoMA embody the spirit of “ALOHA NŌ”—a deeper, more complex aloha that persists through grief, survival, and collective imagination. As Hawai‘i Triennial 2025 unfolds across the islands, HoMA’s contribution underscores the transformative power of art to confront histories and cultivate new visions for the future. Whitewall spoke with Halona Norton-Westbrook, Director & CEO of Honolulu Museum of Art, as well as Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Co-curator of HT25, about this year’s dynamic presentation. 

WHITEWALL: HT25’s venue partner is the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA), which has participated since the Triennial’s inception in 2017. How has this collaboration shaped how contemporary art from the state, the Pacific, and more is seen and experienced in Honolulu?

HALONA NORTON-WESTBROOK: Hawai‘i Contemporary has aimed to start dialogues centered in the Pacific and to raise the islands’ profile as a place for contemporary art. The roster of directors, curators, artists, and collectors who have been drawn to the islands over the past eight years is a testament to Hawai‘i Contemporary’s far-reaching impact. This year it has been amazing to see curators and artists from all over the world gather here for the Triennial, and to witness the public engaging with work they might otherwise never get the chance to experience. The Triennial has firmly placed Hawai‘i in an international dialogue, introducing outstanding Indigenous artists from throughout Polynesia and the Pacific Rim—Samoa, Tonga, Aotearoa New Zealand, Guam, Indonesia, Taiwan—to audiences here and the greater world, while also creating opportunities for local artists. Every three years it brings a concentrated lens to Hawai‘i, enhancing the ongoing work of Honolulu Museum of Art and other institutions such as Bishop Museum.

In addition, as the world faces mounting difficult issues, more than ever people need a connection to art to be able to think in a more empathetic and holistic way. We share Hawai‘i Contemporary’s mission to create transformative art experiences for our community. By collaborating together our organizations can even more deeply contribute to creating this crucial connection.

“People need a connection to art to be able to think in a more empathetic and holistic way,”

—Halona Norton-Westbrook

WW: Eight artists are participating in the installation at HoMA—and all have practices formed out of Indigenous heritages and strong matrilineal connections. Can you share a bit more about this and why this theme is particularly important? 

HNW: The curators of Hawai‘i Triennial 2025—Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Binna Choi, and Noelle Kahanu—have done a tremendous job of aligning artists and their work with the theme Aloha Nō, which includes a deep connectivity to the land and environment, especially as practiced by Indigenous peoples. HoMA is a museum that is working to create space for dialogue around a more nuanced understanding of who we are and who we can be, informed by engagement with our own history and the complex history of Hawai‘i. Centering artworks that are formed out of Indigenous and matrilineal traditions is natural for a museum that endeavors to be intentional and thoughtful about presenting a broad range of voices and perspectives. We are honored to showcase these important works in our galleries.

WW: Of what importance are the works on view at HT25 to the global conversations we’re having now? Now more than ever, it seems people need to connect with art to think empathetically and critically.

HNW: They are all very important. Human rights and human relationship to the land are themes that resonate throughout the artworks presented in this Triennial, and the artists approach these explorations in beautiful, thought-provoking ways. Museums and art events like the Triennial have the power to positively change our society by calling people to attention and inviting connection and care to the broader world and to one another. Hayv Kahraman’s exploration of species in peril through her referencing the endangered Hawaiian land snail in her fiber art and Citra Sasmita’s spotlight on Balinese traditions that revere nature through her paintings on cowhide are strong examples of artists bringing serious and urgent issues to light. 

WW: For those in Hawaii for HT25, what are some of your favorite hotels, bars, restaurants, shops, art spaces, or places to rest and relax? 

HNW: One of my favorite places for lunch or dinner is Fête, led by Native Hawaiian chef Robynne Maii. I love her way of using local ingredients in a global context. They also have great cocktails. When it comes to the arts, it’s notable that Hawai‘i was the first state to have a one percent-for-art law, which has funded a great collection of Island contemporary art that is on view at Capitol Modern and in public spaces throughout the state. Tucked throughout Honolulu are interesting independent art venues, such as Aupuni Space and the University of Hawai‘i Art Gallery. 

WW: After HT25, what are you presenting at the museum?

HNW: The Honolulu Museum of Art strives to share the best of the art of Hawai‘i with the world and bring global art to Hawai‘i. Following almost two years of highlighting local artists such as Satoru Abe and Kapulani Landgraf, we are now preparing for the exhibition “Mary Cassatt at Work,” opening in June. The exhibition, which includes eight works from HoMA’s own collection, emphasizes the professionalism and daring of the groundbreaking Impressionist as well as the unseen toil of women—an aspect that resonates universally.

In August , we present “Lyrically Rebellious: The Prints of Onchi Kōshirō,” celebrating the work of one of Japan’s first abstract artists. We are excited to be the last venue for “Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within,” which will be a sort of homecoming for the renowned and influential ceramic artist who was born in Hawai‘i. 

The museum is also on the forefront of art and brain health, through a partnership with the O‘ahu-based Brain Health Applied Research Institute (B+HARI). In partnership with B+HARI, we are developing a pilot program that promotes brain health in an artmaking setting and an exhibition that explores neuroarts, creativity and the brain, set to open in August 2026. 

WW: Wassan, this year’s works are being presented at HoMA, as well as 12 other venues. Can you share what’s seen throughout the city and where? How does this shape how viewers experience the presentation? 

WASSAN AL-KHUDHAIRI: Hawai’i Triennial 2025 (HT25), ALOHA NŌ, is an expansive exhibition that features works of art across O’ahu, Hawai’i Island, and Maui. We worked closely with one another and our partners to think carefully about what works should be placed where. We approached the exhibition with the intention of really centering place and context, so that works speak to one another while also speaking to place. As part of this process, we commissioned texts—which appear in our guidebook (and our catalog)—that expand on the history of each area where the Triennial is presented. We hope that visitors will be able to consider the theme, “ALOHA NŌ,” as they explore the Triennial at each site of exhibition, and invite them to reflect upon the ideas of “aloha nō.” 

“We approached the exhibition with the intention of really centering place and context,”

—Wassan Al-Khudhairi

WW: What’s been a highlight for you? 

WAK: The highlight of HT25 for me has been the deeply engaging and collaborative process of working with Noelle and Binna to make ALOHA NŌ. The collaborative and consensus decision-making process we engaged in has been a fruitful and generative experience for me as a curator. The conditions of making a triennial in Hawai’i have offered new ways of thinking about collaboration—not just with one another as a curatorial team, but also with community. 

WW: As you mentioned, this year’s title is “Aloha Nō.” How is this recentering the value of the “aloha” spirit with “Nō” is an intensifier in ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian language)? As the press notes stated, “Aloha Nō” reclaims aloha from a colonial-capitalist historicity and situates it as a transformative power that is collectively enacted through contemporary art.

WAK: ALOHA NŌ is an opportunity to relearn aloha; to think about the ways it has been cared for and kept as a Hawaiian value and way of life, and to consider its importance and role today. In the Hawaiian language, nō is an intensifier but we also recognize that readers might read it as no (in English). This slippage of language was something we wanted to embrace—to posit that aloha nō is to aloha (love) deeply, but aloha no is to deny aloha. With this, we hope to bring into focus that to practice aloha is also to defend it. 

WW: Can you tell us about the recently produced film by Edith Amituanai, on view at HoMA?

WAK: We were thrilled to include Edith’s film in ALOHA NŌ. It’s a beautifully made film that traces the artist’s aunt’s journey of migration and her eventual return to Sāmoa. The film weaves celebratory, as well as tragic, life events along with archival images of the Sāmoan landscape. We felt this work speaks strongly to ALOHA NŌ’s call to love deeply and embrace the power of love and resilience. 

WW: Hawaii is a place of rebirth, resilience, and resistance. Of what importance is the land to you?

WAK: As an outsider, I am a visitor and I am truly grateful to Hawai’i and its many communities for allowing me to be here and do this work. I have learned so much from this land and its people, and these experiences and learnings have shaped me in ways that I will only begin to understand in the years to come. As someone who has not had a personal connection to my own land (Iraq), I am grateful to be invited into the land of others to connect, learn, and grow.