Leeward Community College’s Waiʻanae Moku Education Center is currently hosting a monumental and deeply resonant piece of artwork: ʻUmeke Lāʻau: Culture Medicine. The installation, which had been on display earlier this year at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale, was unveiled at Waiʻanae Moku in November at a community welcome event.
Part of the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025: Aloha Nō, ʻUmeke Lāʻau is a massive 22-foot-wide, eight-foot-tall installation created by artist Meleanna Aluli Meyer, in collaboration with ‘Team ʻUmeke’: Honolulu Community College carpentry students, UH Mānoa art faculty and students, and community kokua (help). The work reimagines the traditional ʻumeke—a wooden calabash bowl used for nourishment, water and sacred offerings—as a space for reflection, healing, repair and connection.
ʻUmeke Lāʻau will be on display at Waiʻanae Moku before moving on to Maui in January 2026. Hours are Monday through Thursday 8 a.m.–8 p.m. and Friday 8 a.m.–4 p.m. Reservation requests must be made in advance. Meleanna invites guests to “Come home to Hawaiian culture through the arts.”
Shared mission
“Hosting the ʻUmeke in Waiʻanae Moku is an honor,” said Danny Wyatt, Waiʻanae Moku coordinator. “It reflects our shared mission to perpetuate Hawaiian culture and to make art meaningful and accessible to our ʻohana (family) across the islands.”
The installation embodies the values of lāʻau, or plant medicine, and features the voices of more than 38,000 signers of the 1897 Kūʻē Petitions, opposing Hawaiʻi‘s annexation by the U.S.
The Waiʻanae Kupuna Council, an influential community group, and Waiʻanae Moku invited the installation because of its deep ties to Native Hawaiian communities and its alignment with the campus’s commitment to expanding access to higher education and serving as a vital hub for cultural learning.
