Born and raised in California, and based in Honolulu since 2006, Jaimey Hamilton Faris is a white settler-ally educator, writer, community arts organizer and regenerative cultures facilitator. She is Associate Professor of contemporary art history, critical theory, and environmental humanities at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa. She teaches courses in the Art Department and is affiliate faculty in Pacific Islands Studies and the Institute for Sustainability and Resilience. She serves on the editorial board of Pacific Arts Journal and the advisory board of Upwell Art Lab in LA. She directed the Art Department's artist residency program from 2008-2014.
Her practice exists at the edges of teaching, theory, history, writing and art, where she imbues learning spaces with an ethics of care and healing justice toward decolonial, eco-social, and 'āina-based futures. Bridging education and community art spaces, Liquid Futures is a co-laboratory platform developed with students, colleagues, and community. It features organically arising and evolving exhibition, podcast, web-design, and facilitation projects that emerge from the needs of the community and the students.
Since 2105, her research focus has been on water and its elemental wisdom for reconfiguring the cross-cultural currents of environmental justice in Oceania and beyond. She is currently completing a book on Decolonial Feminist Art and Water Care. Some of her recent articles and essays about art and climate justice include: “Tides of Care: Feminist Ecological Art History Methods,” in Methods for Ecocritical Art History (2025); "Learning with Water," in How to Survive: Living with Care in the Climate Crisis for the Anchorage Art Museum (2025); "Ocean Weaves: Reconfigurations of Environmental Justice in Oceania," (Feminist Review, 2022); "Art for Unsettling Times" in Contact (Tropic Editions, 2022); “Sisters of Ocean and Ice: On the Hydro-feminism of Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna’s Rise: From One Island to Another” (Shima, 2019); “Gestures of Survivance: Angela Tiatia’s Lick and Contemporary Environmental Performance Art in Oceania” (Pacific Arts Journal, 2021); and “Interfacing in the Ocean’s Weave,” in Oceans Rising, ed. Daniela Zyman, (Sternberg Press, 2021). She is also the editor of Almanac for the Beyond (2020) a volume of experimental eco-criticism devoted to critiques of petro-capital temporal structures.
Faris's curation projects on art and climate justice include ʻO Ka Wai Mai: from Lahaina to the Litani, co-curated with Melissa Chimera (2025); Hoʻomana, part of the 18th installment of the Kūkulu Exhibition series sponsored by Mauna Kea Education and Awareness (2023); we found where the sun sets, work by John Pule, co-curated with Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu (2024); Inundation: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific (2020); Pan Pacific Nation, co-curated with Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu (2009).
Prior to 2015, her work on art critiques of global capitalism include her book, Uncommon Goods (Intellect 2013); the special issue on Capitalist Realism in ARTMargins (2015); the exhibition, forum, and festival, Alterna APEC (2008); and directing the non-profit pop-up arts project space-time, OFF[hrs].
AWARDS: Faris has received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Hawai'i, College of Arts and Humanities; the Faculty Diversity Award, University of Hawaii’s Commission on Diversity; the Junior Faculty Research Award; the Technology, Society and Innovation Grant, from the University of Hawaii, Research Council; She has been recognized for her community organization work by the Hawaii People’s Fund.
Her practice exists at the edges of teaching, theory, history, writing and art, where she imbues learning spaces with an ethics of care and healing justice toward decolonial, eco-social, and 'āina-based futures. Bridging education and community art spaces, Liquid Futures is a co-laboratory platform developed with students, colleagues, and community. It features organically arising and evolving exhibition, podcast, web-design, and facilitation projects that emerge from the needs of the community and the students.
Since 2105, her research focus has been on water and its elemental wisdom for reconfiguring the cross-cultural currents of environmental justice in Oceania and beyond. She is currently completing a book on Decolonial Feminist Art and Water Care. Some of her recent articles and essays about art and climate justice include: “Tides of Care: Feminist Ecological Art History Methods,” in Methods for Ecocritical Art History (2025); "Learning with Water," in How to Survive: Living with Care in the Climate Crisis for the Anchorage Art Museum (2025); "Ocean Weaves: Reconfigurations of Environmental Justice in Oceania," (Feminist Review, 2022); "Art for Unsettling Times" in Contact (Tropic Editions, 2022); “Sisters of Ocean and Ice: On the Hydro-feminism of Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna’s Rise: From One Island to Another” (Shima, 2019); “Gestures of Survivance: Angela Tiatia’s Lick and Contemporary Environmental Performance Art in Oceania” (Pacific Arts Journal, 2021); and “Interfacing in the Ocean’s Weave,” in Oceans Rising, ed. Daniela Zyman, (Sternberg Press, 2021). She is also the editor of Almanac for the Beyond (2020) a volume of experimental eco-criticism devoted to critiques of petro-capital temporal structures.
Faris's curation projects on art and climate justice include ʻO Ka Wai Mai: from Lahaina to the Litani, co-curated with Melissa Chimera (2025); Hoʻomana, part of the 18th installment of the Kūkulu Exhibition series sponsored by Mauna Kea Education and Awareness (2023); we found where the sun sets, work by John Pule, co-curated with Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu (2024); Inundation: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific (2020); Pan Pacific Nation, co-curated with Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu (2009).
Prior to 2015, her work on art critiques of global capitalism include her book, Uncommon Goods (Intellect 2013); the special issue on Capitalist Realism in ARTMargins (2015); the exhibition, forum, and festival, Alterna APEC (2008); and directing the non-profit pop-up arts project space-time, OFF[hrs].
AWARDS: Faris has received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Hawai'i, College of Arts and Humanities; the Faculty Diversity Award, University of Hawaii’s Commission on Diversity; the Junior Faculty Research Award; the Technology, Society and Innovation Grant, from the University of Hawaii, Research Council; She has been recognized for her community organization work by the Hawaii People’s Fund.
I will apprentice myself to creeks & tributaries, groundwater & glaciers |