Kahilu Exhibits invites submissions to our 2025 Juried Art Exhibition, ʻOni: Disturbances & Resilience. This exhibition will be on view January 16, 2025 through March 2, 2025 in Kahilu’s Simperman and Suli T. Go Galleries.

Guest Juror, Kanani Daley (Ola Nā Iwi Gallery Curator at East Hawaiʻi Cultural Center in Hilo), invites artists to submit works that reflect resilience, resistance, and transformation as part of an ongoing dialogue between place, culture, and self.

Click for more information and to apply. 

Kahilu hosts 3 keystone exhibitions each year in our Simperman and Suli T. Go Galleries:

• Kahilu’s Annual Juried Exhibition: featuring contemporary artwork and traditional crafts from around the islands and beyond. Each year a Guest Curator is invited to develop a theme and select artworks from an Open Call for Art.
• Waimea All Schools Art Exhibition: featuring artwork by students, staff, and families of the 11 campuses in the Waimea area. Waimea Education Hui works with educators to select a theme each year that reflects upon shared values, uniting the community as “one classroom.”
• Community Invitational: a program launched in 2023 that invites makers, historians, and practitioners to contribute to a themed exhibition celebrating tradition, preservation, and contemporary practices. In 2023, Kahilu presented Legacies: Paniolo of Waimea celebrating our local paniolo heritage through historical photographs, new
  and antique leatherwork, quilting, painting, etc. In 2024, Kahilu welcomes the kapa (Hawaiian bark cloth) art of Roen Hufford and her students in E Ola Ke Kahua O Ka Hana Kapa. In 2025, Kahilu looks forward to showcasing local textile arts.

Solo and group exhibitions:

• Each year, Kahilu solicits exhibition proposals from solo artists, curators, and groups through our online Open Call for Exhibition Proposals. The Call is posted in early Summer and closes in September each year.
• Kahilu’s Exhibitions Committee carefully reviews each proposal and makes recommendations of exhibitions to feature each year. The Committee is made up of Kahilu staff, Kahilu board members, artists, and arts professionals- providing a variety of viewpoints and tastes.
• The Exhibitions Committee seeks to present a diverse offering of exhibitions each year from the submitted proposals- with the hope of presenting exhibitions that feature the artistry of emerging artists on Hawaiʻi Island, established artists living in Hawaiʻi, and established artists from outside the islands.
• Artworks in any genre or medium are welcomed, including installation art, video art, painting, sculpture, photography, fashion, ceramics, crafts, etc. The committee “curates” the season from the submitted exhibition proposals.

• Exhibition proposals remain on file for consideration for 2 years after submission.
• In 2024, Kahilu Exhibits launched a new solo exhibition series that invites local
  luminaries to showcase recent projects and artworks from their inventories. These exhibitions are awarded by invitation and through the annual Call for Exhibition
  Proposals.

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Exhibition curator, Roen Hufford, has welcomed countless students, traditional practitioners, and contemporary artists to her Waimea-area studio and wauke patches. Roen’s efforts to reclaim and expand the Hawaiian art of ka hana kapa were honored with a 2023 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

This exhibition highlights recent creations in kapa by dedicated artists of varying skill levels-  helping assure the continuation of kapa-making in Hawaiʻi for generations to come.