Hawaii Aloha: Honouring the “Hawaii Nation”

How do we assess the success of a cultural event? What metrics apply when you’re talking about dancers, artists and a host of creatives? That’s the challenge facing anyone who wants to determine whether the 13th

Read More

A meeting of culture, commerce and solidarity

At the halfway of the recent Festival for Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC), its operations director Makanani Sali described it as a “beautiful, chaotic mess” in an interview with local media. And that is how it

Read More

FestPAC closes with fond memories and call to preserve Pacific Arts and Cultures

The Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC 2024) ended in Honolulu, Hawaii after 11 days for arts and cultural celebrations fostering fond memories of the event and a huge challenge to preserve Pacific Arts and

Read More

Pacific nations strengthen ties at massive FestPAC celebration in Hawaii

A crowd of thousands bid farewell to the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture on Sunday during a large-scale celebration at the University of Hawaii that hosted delegates from 27 island nations.  FestPAC, hailed

Read More

At FestPAC, a call to preserve the ocean that separates — and connects

All of the 28 nation’s participating in 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture on Oahu are separated by miles of ocean. That same ocean, they say, connects them.  That’s why they’re working to protect the

Read More

‘A Pacific notion of presence’: FestPAC attendees show solidarity for New Caledonia

When Fijian Mika Sela saw New Caledonia’s glaringly empty hale at the Hawaii Convention Centre, the Fiji delegate took his kava bowl and sat alone.  The Indigenous Kanaks of the French territory were forced to

Read More

Hokule’a’s babies: Cook Islands master navigator credits pioneers

In 2024 in Honolulu, the most venerated participants of the 13th Festpac are the voyagers who have arrived by reading the stars, the waves and winds, to close the circle begun by Hawaii’s Hokule’a canoe in the mid

Read More

FestPAC 2024: ‘Fight against the extinction of Pacific people’

The world’s largest event celebrating Pacific culture has united thousands of delegates, leaders, performers and spectators through uplifting marginalised indigenous groups fighting extinction and the right to

Read More

FestPAC 2024: ‘One body, one people, one ocean, one Pacific’

“One body, one people, one ocean, one Pacific”, was was Samoa’s powerful statement during the parade of nations at the official opening of the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC).  It was

Read More

A REAWAKENING OF CULTURAL PRACTICES

Creative and cultural sectors across the Pacific and the world, have been among the hardest hit as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the value of arts and culture is often framed in strictly economic terms and

Read More