No Ka Home O Ka Hale Kahiko
No Ka Home O Ka Hale Kahiko is about vanishing Hawai’i. Our cost of living is comparable to cities like SF or NYC, but income remains tied to low-paying tourism jobs. Multi-generational families reside in small apartments; residents work multiple jobs. Youth leave for better opportunities elsewhere. The ‘paradise tax’ has become the ‘paradise paradox’ – you can live here but you can’t afford to enjoy it. We’ve lost our slower lifestyle and along with that, our aloha.
Yet, there are places here that still reflect our past. Along the Hamakua coast and the west side of the island, you find open space with lush overgrowth, lava flow devastation. and relics of the plantation era. After the loss of the plantation industry, much of the land remains as it has been for decades. It is a place left behind by time – akin to the romanticized throwback that many visitors think of
With this imagery, I portray a sense of place, along with a sense of loss of Hawaii’s simpler lifestyle.
PROCESS: These images were shot using a variety of iPhones with plastic Holga lenses jerry-rigged to them.
