Hawai'i Triennial, featuring works by Ai Weiwei and Liu Xiaodong, now open across Oahu

24 February 2022

The inaugural edition of the Hawaii Triennial, titled Pacific Century – E Ho‘omau no Moananuiākea, is now open across seven venues in Oahu, featuring works by more than 40 artists and collectives from Hawaii, the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere.

The Triennial is curated by curatorial director Dr. Melissa Chiu (director of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in Washington DC), in collaboration with associate curators Dr. Miwako Tezuka and Drew Kahu‘āina Broderick, and will take place over 11 weeks at Hawai'i Contemporary and other locations across Honolulu.

Originally installed as a group of eight trees in the front courtyard of the Royal Academy in London in 2015, Ai Weiwei's Trees (2009–10) comprise fragments of dead trees from southern China grafted together to re-imagine the original living tree. For the HT22 presentation, two of these trees and one of their cast-iron counterparts are grouped together and placed on the upper terrace of the Foster Botanical Gardens in Honolulu, functioning as an imposing reminder of the historical and contemporary settler in this ironically man-made natural environment.

At Honolulu Museum of Art are five watercolours from Liu Xiaodong's Spring in New York series. The selection begins with two views from the artist’s balcony during the lockdown in April 2020. Fast-forward to June, and Liu depicts demonstrators who took to the streets to protest police brutality against Black people alongside those enjoying the reopening of city parks and other public spaces.