Noʻu Revilla
Nānā i ke kumu
Qajar Gallery

Artist Statement

The theme of “source” conjures the Hawaiian concept of, nānā i ke kumu, which implores us to look to the source, especially in times of uncertainty or despair. What does this look like—nānā i ke kumu? One important way we as Kānaka Maoli look to the source is choosing to come back to our bodies, to come back to the bodies of our lands and waters and re-root in who and where we come from.

Yet what if our bodies have been violated? What if our bodies have been ripped apart, sold piece by piece, and occupied by the highest bidder? These questions come up in the history of the Qajar Gallery and how its interior came from a home in Damascus, which was purchased, retrofitted, shipped and installed at Shangri La. These questions come up in the history of Hawaiʻi and its struggle for sovereignty. These questions come up in the history of my own body as a queer ʻŌiwi femme wahine. I refuse to be a vessel for Paradise. Paradise, for my people, has become an enduring fiction of lazy natives, cheap sexuality, and ʻāina that is passive and empty.

How do we find our way back to our bodies after trauma and erasure? How do we find our ways back to our lands and waters, to each other? “Nānā i ke kumu” argues that survival should not be a well-guarded secret among the wealthy and privileged. Access to ancestral lands and waters should not be restricted to the wealthy and privileged. For Hawaiians, an undeniable source of who we are and where we come from is the ocean. So “Nānā i ke kumu” attempts to story connections between the interior of the Qajar Gallery and the ocean of Kūpikipikiʻō beyond the walls of Shangri La.

I believe in poetry as song, argument and protest. I believe in poetry as devotion and courage. I believe in poetry as affirmation of life. As a descendant of Maui moʻo, I often gravitate to stories of women, water and transformation. In “Nānā i ke kumu,” the story of reckoning is also a story of returning to water.