Between August 23, and May 23 of this year, NCAPER facilitated 17 Zoom conversations with artists and arts leaders impacted by devastating wildfires in the historic town of Lahaina on the Hawai’ian island of Maui. These Response Facilitation Calls, one of NCAPER’s core activities, are ostensibly to support those affected by a disaster. But those of us on ‘this’ side of the calls learned a multitude of new and creative ways to respond and recover – the most significant being the strength and resilience of our Hawai’i colleagues. NCAPER commends their creativity and tenacity in using the power of the arts to connect and help rebuild their community, and in constructing new and adaptive ways to work together.
 | The Hawai’i State Foundation on the Arts expedited the release of pending grant funds where possible to speed recovery of arts organizations. |
 | The Maui Institute of Art and Technology stepped up to assist artists whose livelihoods had been suspended, partnering with SCORE, a nationwide business organization. A free workshop for over 50 creatives helped them explore online business models to earn revenue from outside of the immediate area. |
 | The Maui Public Art Corps opened their storytelling initiative to record accounts about the experience from those who felt ready to share. |
 | The importance of traditional indigenous culture in strengthening community was demonstrated by moving forward to present a Hula festival after the fires. |
 | Visual artists were provided with canvas and materials to create 12”x12” artworks, which were then exhibited and sold. |
 | The Western States Arts Federation provided funding to help individual artists return to their practice. |
 | Artists were hired to work in FEMA assistance centers and hotels sheltering displaced residents, providing arts experiences to children and adults. These activities were supported in part by the Governor’s Office of Wellness and Resilience, and were primarily coordinated by the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (MACC) and the Maui Performing Arts Academy (MAPA). |
Across the country, NCAPER sees twin vulnerabilities: artists and creatives are often under-resourced and undercapitalized, and these vulnerabilities make them particularly vulnerable and impacted in the event of a disaster, and they are one of the first to step up in the aftermath to assist communities to process the experience and begin to recover. Carolyn Wright, Executive Director of MAPA, spoke with NCAPER about the ways in which MAPA and others responded in the days, weeks and months after the fires.
“We know that the arts can help bring hope to people as they’re recovering, we know that the arts can connect people very deeply to their own humanity and to their community. That sense of connection is part of building resilience to cope … in the aftermath of disaster,” Carolyn said.
In terms of the long-term goal, she continued “there are three waves that we’ve experienced here. The initial wave: how do we help people. That was less about the arts and more just about human to human. We greeted people who were showing up for FEMA [Disaster Resource Centers] – we heard feedback that people were too scared to walk into that room. Maui is such a different place, and there were people from the mainland sitting there at tables wanting to help, but … artists got together to be the greeting committee. As people came up to the center, we greeted them, we say “talk story” here, it means chit chat, we help them feel comfortable, then we walk them into the FEMA Center and introduced them to the FEMA worker, so they had that transition. It was a really powerful experience, a way that artists could help even though we weren’t using our artform, we were using that capacity that artists have, to be able to connect with people.”
The next phase was “how do we bring our artform to the community where they are, and try to help them experience just a little bit of joy in what is otherwise a joy-less experience. [Working with FEMA], we sent teaching artists to Lahaina to the hotels where survivors were living, and set up a schedule of drama, dance, music, hula, a whole smorgasbord of arts opportunities. We initially learned that people weren’t ready for that. People were still too traumatized. They were more interested in coming and watching the artists do their work, so we had musicians bring a guitar or ukulele, just playing and the survivors would trickle in and just watch … the MACC has teaching artists who are Hawai’ian themselves. One would dance hula for them, and invite them to dance with her…some would, but many of them just wanted to be there, listening to the chanting and watching the hula.”
The third wave: “How do we start having the long term view for what is our role as creatives in helping our community? For MAPA, that is looking at how we craft our programming for our new fiscal year that’s going to have a direct impact on our island’s recovery, and building resilience. What are the conversations we think people want to be having right now, and how can our work spark those conversations so together we can help heal our community?” That’s being done through artistic and economic fronts: artistically through the selection of productions, and programs going into the schools, and economically through strengthening the arts sector locally.” MAPA was in the midst of developing its own venue when the fires hit and hit pause for a period. “In every disaster, there are real learning opportunities, and we discovered that as a creative arts organization, building a new theater, we have the capacity to really impact the island economically. We’re so deeply dependent on tourism, then any outside influence – whether an economic downturn, or a pandemic, or a disaster – the whole island suffers. What can we do to enhance economic diversification so that we’re not as deeply dependent on tourism, so that when these disasters hit, we’re not just immobilized as an entire community, economically? We can strengthen our sector, make sure we are providing living-wage jobs for creatives and tech people, and that helps build resilience against future disasters.” With a new grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and the local capital campaign, MAPA’s renovation of an existing building into a new theatre is proceeding. New internship and apprentice programs are being designed to help fill the new jobs that will be created when the theater opens, helping creatives be able to stay, work and live on Maui.
Learn more:
View the full interview with Carolyn Wright HERE
Case Study in “Community Recovery through
Arts and Culture” webinar, Performing Arts Readiness WATCH HERE
REGISTER HERE for the next live webinar on October 17
NEXT: Watch for our next blog highlighting the creation of the Maui Arts Education Alliance as a network to build resilience before the next disaster.
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