Kelema Lee Moses
Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Planning; University of California, San Diego
Urban Island Design & A Curatorial Response
Building codes, zoning ordinances, and urban growth models create spatial narratives of erasure on native geographies. Within this framework, architectural and urban planning discourses become consumed by conversations about sustainability, climate change and environmental justice, often neglecting spiritual and cosmological cartographies about the land, sea, and sky. This lecture centers Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) epistemologies about ‘āina (land; that which feeds), a storied entity tied to Hawaiian thoughts and practices rooted in place, place-making, and well-being. Moses interrogate the boundaries and limits of planning and architectural design in Hawai‘i through the lens of Pacific Islander architects and artists working to recover disappeared Kanaka lands, lifeways, and ecologies amid ongoing acts of militarization and dispossession.
