Spring 2008 Programs

Michael Hoyt (March 31-April 18, 2008)

Public Lecture:
Tuesday, April 1 @ 7:30pm
@ UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Michael Hoyt is a visual artist with national exhibition record in painting and installation art. He grew up in Minnesota and received his BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Hoyt has received grants and awards from the MN State Arts Board and the Jerome Foundation and has been a past artist in residence at Roanoke College in VA.

As an Asian-American artist, Hoyt attempts to illuminate the hyphen, and aspires to create work that represents the enormous richness, contradiction, and vitality that defines the American experience, in order to stimulate debate, raise awareness, and build bridges within and beyond community.

Hoyt is currently the Executive Director of the Minneapolis based Kulture Klub Collaborative, an innovative arts organization that partners youth experiencing homelessness with artists and artistic practice, bridging survival with inspiration.

to Honolulu Norae Shanty Schedule and Blog

Marcus Rediker (April 21, 2008)
One of the world's leading maritime historians & author of The Slave Ship: A Human History

Public Lecture & Book Signing:
"The Floating Dungeon: A History of the Slave Ship"
Monday, April 21 @ 4:30 to 6:30pm
@ UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Marcus Rediker explores the history of British and American slave ships that crossed the Atlantic from 1700 until the abolition of the trade in 1807-1808, treating the slaver as a framework for human and inhuman interaction. Special emphasis is given to the struggles of multi-ethnic enslaved Africans who fiercely and creatively battled terror and death and thereby began to build on the ships what we now call African American culture.

Marcus Rediker, Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, is the author of five award-winning books. He is internationally recognized as a leading social and cultural historian who has contributed greatly to the appearance and spectacular growth of what has variously been called a "people's history" or "history from below" over the past thirty years a development seen by many as one of the most important advancements in the discipline of history. In The Slave Ship: A Human History, Professor Rediker reconstructs in chilling detail the lives, deaths and terrors of captains, sailors, and the enslaved aboard a "floating dungeon" trailed by sharks. In doing so, he illuminates the lives of people who were thought to have left no trace.

Supported by the UHM Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Education and its Major Initiatives in the Liberal Arts Fund, the Chancellor's Office, the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Sociology, and the College of Social Sciences.

Also supported by the UHM Departments of: American Studies, Anthropology, Art and Art History, English, History, Political Science, and International Cultural Studies Program.

Boyd Sugiki: Elements
January 18 – May 27, 2008
The Contemporary Museum at First Hawai'ian Center 

Public Lecture:
Wednesday, January 16th, @ 6:30 PM
@ UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Sugiki’s first exposure to the world of glass was as a Junior in the hot-shop at Punahou school. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, and his Master of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. He has exhibited at, The Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA, The American Craft Museum NY, Vetri International Glass, Seattle, WA; and William Traver Gallery, Tacoma, WA. Sugiki frequently serves as a visiting instructor at institutions throughout the country. He currently lives and works in Seattle, Washington.

More on Sugiki's work

Kirby Gookin (February 18-22, 2008)

Public Lecture:
"In the Beginning, There Was the Copy: The Cult of Originality in a Culture of Copies"
Tuesday, February 19 @ 7:30pm
@ UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Kirby Gookin is a curator, public artist, art historian, and critic. As a public artist, Kirby Gookin is a founding member of GRATIS, a collective formed in 1994 to create Isla Del Copyright (Bilbao, 1995), Copiacabana (Guadiana River, Badajoz, 1996) and other copyright free public projects on both sides of the Atlantic. He is a writer for Artforum, and has written articles and reviews on 20th and 21st century art for Artscribe, Arts Magazine, and Parkett, as well as for gallery and museum publications. He is on the Board of Directors of White Columns, New York, and is a Professor at New York University teaching Critical Studies in the Department of Art and Art Professions. He is currently preparing a book on the aesthetic foundations of eugenic practices titled Eugenics and the Aesthetics of Ideal Beauty. He is a member of the Global Academy, an organization of scientists and ethicists who meet to discuss the cultural importance of emerging genetic technologies and produce conferences and forums to present their research.