KEN NAKAHASHI

YUKI HARADA

Partially inspired by his experiences in Hawaii, where he has spent time off and on since 2019, Japanese artist Yuki Harada explores themes related to transnational culture, such as pidgin English and the history of immigration, in his practice. His latest work, Home Port (2023), takes Lahaina, the former 19th-century capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom on the island of Maui, as its starting point. Informed by exhaustive field research into the local history, people, and culture, the work alludes to the distant past of this settlement while also hinting at the tragedy of more recent events such as the great wildfire that devastated the region and its community in August 2023. Harada’s video uses computer-generated visuals to depict landscapes of a hypothetical Lahaina from a distant future that contains hints of its past—as a port for whaling vessels that historically attracted working immigrants from Japan and elsewhere, as a flourishing tourist destination after World War II, and as a center for marine art.