ʻāina

For thousands of years, warfare has served as a means of settling human affairs and its effects become increasingly pronounced as technology develops. The threat of nuclear warfare hangs over our heads, prompting humanity to more deeply consider its consequences. To bring light to this issue, I have created eight vessels emulating different explosives from both past and present. Most of the pieces come in pairs, representing the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1945 atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the 21st century military operations against Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The remaining two are intended to open up conversations of the future, with one based on Operation Sailor Hat and the other the Tsar Bomba. The former was a series of explosive tests which detonated 500-short-ton domes of TNT on the island of Kahoʻolawe in 1965. The resulting crater connected the island’s groundwater to the ocean and is now populated with two species of endemic shrimp. My intent is to show that though the damage is still present, it is possible to begin anew and thrive in a more peaceful world. The latter was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested: the hydrogen bomb. Though it was never actually used in warfare—nor was it intended to be—the threat it posed as an indicator of how powerful weapons have become continues to loom over the world to this day. I hope to open discussions through this series about how humanity should move forward taking these events into consideration.