Bernice Akamine

Bernice Ann Keolamauloaonalani Akamine (née Bernice Ann Keolamauloaonalani Miyamoto; born December 1, 1949 – June 14, 2024) was an American Native Hawaiian traditional artist and Hawaiian rights activist. Her visual art has taken multiple forms, including glass and featherwork, and she taught traditional Hawaiian art techniques such as the creation of kapa cloth and natural dyeing using Hawaiian plants. Akamine was an advocate for Indigenous land rights, using her artwork to bring attention to the colonial invasion of Hawaiʻi and its continued effects on the native Hawaiian population.

Early life and education

Bernice Ann Keolamauloaonalani (Miyamoto) Akamine was born in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, on December 1, 1949. Her heritage is kānaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) and Japanese American. Akamine's grandmother was a kahuna lāʻau lapaʻau, a traditional Hawaiian healer, and her mother, Audrey Elliott, was a lauhala weaver. She studied multiple traditional Hawaiian art forms at the university, such as lei hulu (feather lei) and lauhala weaving. She also completed graduate work at Central Washington University in natural resource management.

Artwork

Akamine's artwork focused on environmental and cultural issues, especially the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the ongoing Hawaiian sovereignty movement. She was a kumu (expert teacher) of the methods of creating and using waiho‘olu‘u (natural plant dyes). During a 2005 internship at the Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, she documented the colors created with these dyes, pairing 20 samples of dye with plant photos. Akamine said her art "is meant to make a statement and preserve cultural knowledge."

Selected projects Kalo (2015): large-scale traveling installation featuring 87 individual kalo plants made from pōhaku (stone) and newsprint Hinalua’iko’a (2017): suspended and freestanding beaded sculptures inspired by traditional Hawaiian fish traps, oceanic forms, and Kumulipo, the Hawaiian creation chant

Awards and fellowships Pilchuck Partners Scholarship to Pilchuck Glass School, 1995