Kapulani Landgraf

“We must always engage in creative forms of resistance to help prevent further erosion and destruction of nā wahi kapu [sacred sites], whose presence binds us to our ancestors, our oral and written traditions, our spiritual world, our land, its living entities, and our indigenous history as well as our future.”

–– Kapulani Landgraf, 2003

Kapulani Landgraf is an artist, cultural organizer, and educator whose place-centered interdisciplinary practice advocates for the stewardship of Native Hawaiian history, culture, and ‘āina (land).

Born in Pūʻahuʻula, Oʻahu, and of Native Hawaiian (Kanaka ʻŌiwi) descent, Landgraf grew up among the Ko‘olau mountains. At five years old, she purchased her first camera and quickly developed a passion for the medium. In 1986, Landgraf completed an associate degree at Windward Community College in Kāne‘ohe, taking photography courses with artist Mark Hamasaki and initiating an oral history project with kūpuna (Hawaiian elders) that paired photographs with texts drawn from her research.

In 1989, Landgraf formed the collective Piliāmoʻo (meaning "to cling as a moʻo along a cliff") with Hamasaki, and the duo began to document the highly contested construction of O‘ahu’s Interstate H-3 highway over eight years. Through this project, she realized that contract archaeology––the survey of areas threatened or revealed by development––did not lead to conservation. Landgraf noted, “Seeing the site one week and going back the next week and it was gone was horrific.” Subsequently, she developed her interest in archaeology—initially sparked during her studies of anthropology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the late 1980s—within the medium of photography.

While pursuing an MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the early 1990s, Landgraf created and published black-and-white photographs of remote nā wahi kapu (sacred sites) across Hawai‘i, including Maui and Oʻahu. “Black and white is devoid of color,” she stated, “so it strips away that stereotype of Hawai‘i being paradise.” Landgraf paired her photographs with poetic texts written in Hawaiian (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) and English that chronicle each site’s mo‘olelo (Hawaiian oral traditions), often foregrounding Native Hawaiian scholarship, including that of Hawaiian scholar, composer, dancer, and educator Mary Kawena Pūkuʻi.

Beginning in 1994, Landgraf created collages like Puka mai (2002, SAAM) by cutting her gelatin silver prints and variously combining those fragments with images of Native Hawaiian objects, plants, and animals as well as historical photographs. She also confronts the ongoing exploitation of Hawaiʻi’s natural resources for military, tourist, and agricultural development in works like ‘Eli‘eli kapu (2003, SAAM), which features an excavator arm. Landgraf noted, “As I get older, I want to go all out and risk being more political, more in your face, not so subtle like the landscapes.”

In the 2010s, Landgraf began producing mixed-media installations as another mode for probing Hawai‘i’s rampant multinational development. She responded to the displacement of Native Hawaiian ancestral burial grounds for cement production in the installation of her series Ponoiwi (2011), featuring hand-etched aerial photographs of sacred sites including Nā Hono a Pi‘ikea (2011, SAAM), Pu‘u Nēnē, (2011, SAAM), and Kapukaulua (2011, SAAM).

Landgraf’s commitment to Native Hawaiian history, culture, and land has extended into her role as an educator, developing curriculum and initiatives to cultivate Native Hawaiian education. “Although much of my work laments the violations on the Hawaiian people, land and natural resources,” she acknowledged, “they also offer hope with allusions to the strength and resilience of Hawaiian land and its people.”

Authored by Anna Lee, Curatorial Assistant for Asian American art, and Gabriella Shypula, American Women’s History Initiative Writer and Editor, 2024.