Power Up: Museum Momentum in 2022-23

Aloha mai kākou,

 Our Hawaiʻi museums and cultural institution professionals have in the last two years arduously navigated through a changing world and are now diligently immersed in the implementation of creatively tailored programmatic solutions that reconnect with the community and rebuild visitor confidence through regulated virtual, hybrid, and in-person events. 

 Hawaiʻi Museums Association (HMA) is excited to be joining together museum professionals from across our islands for a progressive conference unlike any other we’ve organized in the past. Power Up: Museum Momentum in 2022 wishes to address the resurgence of our museums after a precarious and conflicted two years. Our aim this year is to host a series of island hopping events on 5 of our islands, addressing 6 concerns facing our Hawaii museum staff and institutions today. These themes are based on your conference survey responses provided in 2021. We will also present a window into our collective institutions as we join them and learn about their current programs and financial and organizational realities.

 HMA launched this progressive conference program beginning in Maui on April 3. Board Director and Gallery Director of Maui Arts and Cultural Center (MACC), Neida Bangerter, organized a day of events in alignment with the opening of O Kalani, an exhibition featuring the work of two prominent, Kanaka Maoli artists Sean K.L. Brown and Imaikalani Kalahele.

 On May 21, we held a conference day on Kaua’i, with Reopening the Gates. The program was held at Grove Farm Homestead under the program title, Kauai: Reopening the Gates. The day began with a tour of the historic home and its grounds followed by a panel discussion that brought together five leading Kauaʻi cultural representatives: Fred Atkins, General partner of Kilohana Plantation and former Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority Board Member; Chucky Boy Chock, Executive Director of Kauaʻi Museum and HMA Board Director; Thomas Daubert, Executive Director of Friends of Kauaʻi Wildlife Refuges; Sam Pratt, Chair of Grove Farm Homestead; and contributing speaker, Billi Topp-Smith, President of Hui o Laka/ Kokeʻe Natural History Museum. The discussion brought to light challenges each institution faced along with significant shifts in institutional models and was moderated by HMA Board Officer, Treasurer, Frank O. Hay.

 Your HMA board and staff at East Hawai’i Cultural Center have developed this next  program installment that will take place in Hilo, and is titled, Navigating Our Institutions’ Future.  See below for more details and register today!

We look forward to meeting our members and making new friends across the islands at these events!

Oʻahu | March 25, 2023

Hilo, Hawaiʻi | September 24, 2022

Kauaʻi | May 21, 2022

Maui | April 3, 2022

EXPLANATION OF HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE

Written Hawaiian uses two diacritical markings as pronunciation guides:

  • The ‘okina, which is typographically represented as a reversed apostrophe. In spoken Hawaiian, the ‘okina indicates a glottal stop, or clean break between vowels. If your browser supports this display (and it may not, depending on browser type and settings), an ‘okina should look like this: ‘. If browsing conditions do not support this display, you might be seeing a box, a blank space, or odd-looking character instead.
  • The kahako, or macron, which is typographically represented as a bar above the letter, as in ā (again, you will see it correctly only if your browser delivers it correctly). The macron on a vowel indicates increased duration in pronunciation of the vowel that it appears over.

Web browsers sometimes have difficulty reproducing these markings without the use of graphics, special fonts, or special coding. Even correctly authored Web pages that use Unicode coding may be transmitted through a server that displays the symbols incorrectly or the browser may use a replacement font that displays these incorrectly.

Since most browsers can and do display the ASCII grave symbol (‘) as coded, this site uses the grave symbol to represent the ‘okina. We do depict the correct ‘okina on all pages in the title graphic because it is embedded in the graphic and not displayed as text.

The kahako/macron is more problematic. Given the problems with displaying this with current technology, some websites resort to displaying these with diaeresis characters instead, as in ä, which will appear in most browsers (but not all) as an “a” with two dots over it. However, this is not a desirable solution because it doesn’t work uniformly in all browser situations. Until Unicode fonts are more universally displayable, the site reluctantly omits the kahako from most text.

For up-to-date information on how to display the Hawaiian language on websites, visit http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/enehana/unicode.php by the Kualono Hawaiian Language Center of the University of Hawaii. General information on these issues can also be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%98Okina and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macron.