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Welina me ke aloha!  Welcome to Liquid Futures, an experimental co-learning space  facilitated by Jaimey Faris.  This space centers intercultural, solidarity, and "many streams" approaches to engaging environmental arts and humanities students at the University of Hawaiʻi, community members (and many more) as we engage together in regenerating ʻāina-based water cultures.  We start with Kanaka Maoli principles of Kānāwai* that have been shared with the wider community. See Kapua’ala Sproat, From Wai to Kānāwai: Water Law. The importance of water is celebrated as the source of Kanaka Maoli governance, its principles of flow acting as a guide for future generative relationships.

* Kānāwai : "relating to water." 


In Hawaiʻi and beyond, Liquid Futures offers spaces and modes for sharing and transforming our relations to each other and this watery world through digital storytelling, collaborative poetry, movement and somatic work, collective curating, mural and sculpture making, hosting "water councils,"  podcasts, and more. We emphasize community-based historical and ecological research, filled with pilina (connection),  slow  observation, deep reflection, futures imagining, joy, and care.

How does water want to be represented? 


Imagining from the point of view of particular water bodies——and their associated animal, plant, land, mineral, spirit beings——upsets  colonial-capital-centered approaches to water issues.  We live in a world of complex water infrastructure that demand policy change and system intervention to implement positive feedback loops for the future.


But before that happens, we need to transform "resource-based" knowledge, relationships, and imaginations about what water is and wants. This means engaging and learning with  Kanaka Maoli and local communities who live near and care for bodies of water.  Only in relation can we  (re)learn water's language, needs, wants, and values.

Images from our Re-mapping Collab Workshop on Pu'uloa (Pearl Harbor)

Instagram posts for #hoh808 from the point of view of animal beings telling a story of an abundant future for Malama Pu'uloa....