Curatorial Intensive Auckland 2019 alumni Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick and Josh Tengan are collaborating on Ai Pōhaku, Stone Eaters, a multi-part exhibition of contemporary Hawaiian art to span three campuses of the University of Hawaiʻi, Oʻahu. It will open to the public in Spring 2023.
Josh Tengan is a curator and writer from Pauoa, Oʻahu. He currently serves as the associate director of Puʻuhonua Society, one of Hawaiʻi’s most long standing arts nonprofits. Since 2015, he has worked with local and Native Hawaiian artists, to deliver Hawaiʻi’s largest annual thematic contemporary art exhibition, CONTACT, which offers a critical and comprehensive survey of local contemporary visual culture. In 2019, he curated CONTACT: Acts of Faith, which featured artwork, installation, and an artist book library cited in the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archive. And in 2022, he was a co-editor and writer for the newly released publication, CONTACT (2014–2019), which memorializes that effort. He was the Assistant Curator of the second Honolulu Biennial 2019, To Make Wrong / Right / Now curated by Nina Tonga. In 2021, he returned to the organization, Hawaiʻi Contemporary, as exhibition manager for Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022. He is a generational islander of Kānaka ʻŌiwi, Ryukyuan, and Madeiran descent and his practice centers on contemporary art from Hawaiʻi and Moananuiākea. He holds a Curatorial Studies M.A. with Distinction from Newcastle University (UK).
Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick is an artist, curator, and educator from Mōkapu on the windward side of the island of Oʻahu, in U.S. occupied Hawaiʻi. Currently, he serves as director of Koa Gallery, Kapiʻolani Community College and is an active member of kekahi wahi (2020 – ), a film collective focused on documenting stories of transformation throughout the Pacific. From 2019 to 2022 he was an associate curator of the inaugural Hawaiʻi Triennial: Pacific Century - E Hoʻomau no Moananuiākea. In 2020 he co-edited CONTACT (2014 – 2019), a publication documenting the annual, open-call, thematic exhibition of the same name that explored notions of “contact” as they relate to the Hawaiian archipelago. Raised in a deep-rooted matriarchy, Drew’s work is inspired and guided by the multigenerational efforts of his mother, aunties, and maternal grandmother, who have all devoted their lives to art, education, and community in Hawaiʻi. Collaborative projects in development include ʻAi Pōhaku, Stone Eaters (2023), an expansive offering of Native Hawaiian artistic and cultural practices; I OLA KANALOA (2019 – ), a community-oriented process guided by the voices of Kanaloa-Kahoʻolawe and Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana; and Revisiting Kealakekua Bay, Reworking the Captain Cook Monument (2018-2024), a gathering of unrealized interventionist proposals by a motley crew of international practitioners.
This Curatorial Research Fellowship is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Leon Polk Smith Foundation, as well as support from ICI's Board of Trustees and Leadership Council.
