HoMA Artist Spotlight: Heather Giugni

By Last Updated: September 11, 2022Views: 640

HoMA is spotlighting the work of artists in our group and past throughout these difficult occasions. The Doris Duke Theatre group requested filmmaker Heather Haunani Giugni of ʻUluʻulu archives to share what has been inspiring her creativity throughout shelter-in-place and social distancing.

Doris Duke Theatre: Heather, inform us a bit about your self.

Heather: First a glance by means of the rear view mirror: I used to be born on Oʻahu within the month of Might when Hawaiʻi was nonetheless a Territory. My mother and father have been raised on the Pearl Metropolis Peninsula initially generally known as Mānana on the shores of gorgeous Puʻuloa. On my maternal aspect, my English grandfather was a bookkeeper on the Oahu Sugar Firm situated in Waipahu, whereas my Hawaiian-German grandmother taught at August Ahrens and later Pearl Metropolis Elementary. On my paternal aspect, my grandfather was a second-generation Italian immigrant from Napa Valley who got here to Hawaiʻi after he noticed an advert within the paper that promised work at a brand new shipyard referred to as Pearl Harbor.

Heather’s great-grandfather, Judge Samuel Hoʻokano

Heather’s great-grandfather, Decide Samuel Hoʻokano

He met and married a full-blooded Hawaiian who turned the principal at Pearl Metropolis Elementary and whose father was the Decide of the Ewa District. I grew up in a politically motivated household devoted to the newly empowered Democratic Occasion of Hawaiʻi.

Heather and her sisters sporting Inouye campaign fashion, 1960

Heather and her sisters sporting Inouye marketing campaign vogue, 1960

As time went on, I needed to be an Artist (honored as one of many Artists of Hawaiʻi on the Honolulu Academy of Arts within the early 80s) and ended up with a Journalism diploma which led to my ardour for telling tales with transferring photos, and ultimately serving to to protect them too.

On this planet of broadcast, I used to be a major producer for the Merrie Monarch Competition broadcast from 2009 – 2011. Since 2006 I’ve produced the Kamehameha Faculties Track Contest with my Rock Salt Media associate Renea Veneri Stewart. We additionally produce the award-winning Hawaiʻi-based sequence Household Components about household, meals and journey which airs nationally on PBS. Different works embody Below A Jarvis Moon with Noelle Kahanu, One Voice with Pacific Islanders in Communications and director Lisette Flanary, and a documentary on the late Sen. Daniel Okay. Inouye, to call just a few. I used to be a founding member of Pacific Islanders in Communications and ʻUluʻulu, Hawaiʻiʻs official transferring picture archive and a former board member of the Bishop Museum. I additionally consider in public service and served as a Consultant within the State Legislature in 2012.

DDT: What’s inspiring you as an artist today?

Heather:

  1. NATURE: It feels extra vibrant, clear, stunning and with the quantity turned up. If solely we might come out of this expertise listening to what Nature mentioned throughout this time… and make the change to be higher companions with our Planet.
  1. TECHNOLOGY: Leaning into know-how throughout this pandemic interval has opened up new methods of studying and speaking that had in any other case not been so enthusiastically embraced. Whether or not itʻs on-line grocery procuring, distant studying, telemedicine, google-hangouts, group conferences, zoom birthday events, Netflix watch events or pau hana meet-ups—all of it has been fairly outstanding (and but nonetheless no substitute for the human contact).
  1. MAʻOWN FARM: increasing on my modest yard vegetable backyard. Beets, Swiss Chard, Kale (three completely different varieties), Tomatoes, Lettuce (selection), Beans, Corn, Carrots, Squash, Pineapple. All in several phases from germination to final likelihood. My go-to each day greens: beets, kale, swiss chard, lettuce. It’s a small, manageable vegetable backyard—some in-ground stuff, in any other case filling any pot I discover and placing a seed in it! Additionally in my yard: Coconut, Papaya, Fig, Mango bushes and Sugar Cane. Lacking: Chickens.

DDT: And what are you presently watching?

Heather:

Killing Eve
Run
My Good Pal
Something on TCM in Black n White


Mahalo, Heather! Discover extra about
ʻUluʻulu, the Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Transferring Picture Archive of Hawaiʻi right here. ʻUluʻulu goals to perpetuate and share the wealthy transferring picture heritage of Hawaiʻi by means of the preservation of movie and videotape associated to the historical past and tradition of Native Hawaiians and the individuals of Hawaiʻi.

– Taylour Chang, Curator of Movie and Efficiency

5.18.2020


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