Learned traditional practices from many kūpuna while growing up on Oʻahu in the 1960s-1980s, and one of the most significant of these was uhi, Hawaiian tattooing. After using modern tattooing machines in the 1990s, Suluʻape Keone met Suʻa Suluʻape Paulo of Apia, Sāmoa, in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, after which time, Suluʻape Keone was mentored by Suʻa Suluʻape Paulo until his death in 1999. Since 2000, Suluʻape Keone has been working exclusively with traditional tools, and in 2001, Suluʻape Keone was given the Suluʻape title from Suʻa Suluʻape Paulo’s family, the first Hawaiian to receive such an honor.

Suluʻape Keone has worked to re-establish and strengthen uhi and other traditional practices within the Hawaiian community as founder of the Pā Uhi Hawaiʻi organization (1993), and in his roles as crewmember and protocol officer for the Polynesian Voyaging Society on Hōkūleʻa and Hawaiʻiloa. Suluʻape Keoneʻs larger objectives are the pursuit of social justice, inter- and intra-cultural understanding through facilitating cross-cultural education, empowering community, and education through Hawaiian cultural values and practices.

CEO of Mauliola Endowment is a native Hawaiian from the island of Maui is a progressive pioneer with 30 years of experience in conducting research in various Hawaiian practices of time keeping, lunar calendars, heiau ritual, ceremonies and epistemologies connected to phenology, strategic resource management and social wellbeing. Her expertise is Papahulilani, the study of celestial cycles and atmospheric phenomena.

She uses art, photography, chanting, and Hawaiian epistemologies to effectively incorporate and bridge Hawaiian practices into strategic plans, organizational missions, and core community values that successfully drive Hawaiʻi organizations. A critical thinker recognized kilo practitioner, academic, philanthropist and advocate of access to traditional knowledge, she uses traditional methods to create and enrich healthy environments and situations where people can thrive.

(Kanaka ʻOiwi / Native Hawaiian) is a fifteen-year veteran of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, where she developed scores of exhibitions and programs. She worked on the renovation of Hawaiian Hall (2009), Pacific Hall (2013), the landmark E Kū Ana Ka Paia exhibition (2010), and more recently has been involved in international repatriations.

She has a law degree from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she currently serves as an associate specialist in Public Humanities and Native Hawaiian Programs within the American Studies Department. Her current research and practice explores the liberating and generative opportunities when museums “seed” authority rather than “cede” authority.

Kamalu is a Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) cultural practitioner and museum professional. Her academic career has focused on Anthropology, Art History, and Pacific Island Studies.

Kamalu combines over 20 years’ experience in collections care, community-building, and deep commitment to cultural practices in her role as Cultural Resource Specialist at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, bringing indigenous knowledge and praxis into museum settings.

Under Kumu Hula John Keola Lake, Kamalu gained extensive training in dance, chant, and other ritual protocols. This training foregrounds her role in protocols for exhibitions of Hawaiian and Oceanic cultural objects, such as Pacific Encounters at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (2006) and Royal Hawaiian Featherwork at the De Young Museum (2015).

In kapa making, Kamalu spent 15 years under the direct guidance of Moana K. M. Eisele. Kamaluʻs practical and conceptual basis for kapa making engages with ancestral processes and purposes, as shown in her work dressing kiʻi akua Kū for both Oceania at the Royal Academy of Arts (2018) and at the Peabody Essex Museum in 2019.