Dane Nakama

Lives and works in Honolulu, HI and Los Angeles, CA

Artist statement

"At what point do our histories turn into mythology - do our ancestors become characters in stories we tell our children before they go to sleep? At what distance do our homelands become dreamlands? Does our blood begin to speak a different language? Or do our bones turn to milk?" I am a fifth-generation Japanese-Uchinanchu artist from Oʻahu, based between Hawaiʻi and Los Angeles. Through ceramics, painting, installation, sound, video, and writing, I explore how stories shape our sense of place. My work draws on the pedagogies of island life and the multicultural language of my upbringing: singing 2 national anthems, kamaʻāina discounts, sugar and poi. Moving between myth, memory, and history, I hold trauma and love together to question and resist colonial logics we have unknowingly absorbed. I am a student of my grandmother, Taeko Iguchi, who taught me to cook and gave me a love of traditional Japanese music. I learned to make lei from my mother and great-aunts: Aunty Tsuki, Aunty Fat, and Grandma H. My father gave me a love of history, quizzing my sister and me on the line of chiefs before bed and telling us stories of my grandfather’s childhood in the cane fields of Pūʻunene Camp. Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng taught me the power of language. I took Okinawan dance lessons and began studying decolonial theory under Eric Wada sensei. With Joy Sanchez and Cassie Louie, I built school programs and a flourishing Mah Jong club. I studied art under Candice Lin and Shirley Tse. These...

Artwork