Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu

Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu (Kanaka ʻOiwi/Native Hawaiian) is a fifteen-year veteran of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, where she developed scores of exhibitions and programs. She worked on the renovation of Hawaiian Hall (2009), Pacific Hall (2013), the landmark E Kū Ana Ka Paia exhibition (2010), and more recently has been involved in international repatriations. She has a law degree from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she currently serves as an assistant specialist in Public Humanities and Native Hawaiian Programs within the American Studies Department. Her current research and practice explores the liberating and generative opportunities when museums “seed” authority.

For more information, read about Noelle's current projects Fault Lines: Imagining Indigenous futures for colonial collections and NIU voyaging into the future or visit her webpage.