Tiare Ribeaux

NAME Tiare Ribeaux

AGE 39

TOWN/MOKU Kaimuki/Palolo

ISLAND Oʻahu

SOCIAL: @tiareribeaux

NOMINATED BY Nanea Lum

Leadership Category Professional development

Share with us a little about yourself and what you do. 

My name is Tiare Ribeaux, and I am a kānaka maoli multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, community organizer and curator. My work focuses on social and ecological imbalances, exploring the liminal dimensions of our reality and the cyclical nature of the elements as positioned within the Hawaiian cosmology/worldview. In my organizing and curatorial work, I lead public workshops on multimedia art making, discourse and cultural resiliency, produce group exhibitions, and have directed large scale arts and performance festivals. From 2014 - 2020, I was the artistic director of the non-profit community space B4BEL4B in Oakland focusing on new media and transdisciplinary art with an emphasis on inclusion, social engagement and experimentation. Within this space I curated over 25 exhibitions, and helped to lead and organize workshops, artist critiques, performances, and other gatherings for the community.

The aim of my recent art, filmmaking, and organizing work is to celebrate how Kānaka Maoli have both held onto their traditions and beliefs, and evolved their practices on their own terms - our resiliency, genius, and strength - in the face of colonialist expansion. The work I aim to create emphasizes the importance of remembrance of both traditions and our ancestors as a way of sharing and transferring knowledge. Focusing on an ancestral connection to elemental forces, I aim to situate my film work within the practice of stewardship of our ʻāina.

Why is the work that you do important to you? The community? 

It is deeply important for me to bring artists and creative practitioners together through collaborative projects with shared intention and vision, in order to uplift and augment each other’s practices, voices, and work. In particular - that which empowers the kānaka maoli artist community, creating platforms in which we can come together in conversation, co-creation, and celebration of our work in the public sphere.

In November I organized a series of workshops called “Kō Manawa (Our Time) which brought together kānaka maoli and local creatives to co-vision multimedia art projects that utilize and uplift heritage, stories, and personal + cultural resiliency through new/expanded media art. From the workshops, a large body of work called Ulu Kupu now spans 2 exhibition spaces (At Aupuni Space and Hawai’i State Art Museum) that were collaboratively discussed and developed between 9 artists. The work emphasizes the sacredness of wai (water), and the rainforests that hold our watersheds, as well as our interconnectedness and responsibility to the elements that sustain us.

The work both empowers me as a community leader as well as shows the strength of our creative lahui to create space for ourselves both within gallery and museum spaces, which ripple outwards beyond these spaces. Through the transmission of our stories and visions as ‘ike, and as a shared remembrance through our work - a reclamation, regrowth and expansion of our values of kānaka maoli can take place both for ourselves and within a greater context within the larger community.

Share with us the qualities of leadership you admire and how you express those in your life. 

Humility, perseverance, balance, respect, openness, generosity, patience, and integrity are all qualities of leadership I admire and work to embrace both within my creative practice, and within all of my interactions with people in our community.
I express those through my organizing work, so that the improvement and strength of everyone I am engaging with, as well as our shared vision, is emphasized through the commitment to these qualities as a leader.

Who has inspired you to do the work that you are doing? 

My ancestors have inspired my work, and the many leaders, organizers and activists over time who have laid the groundwork for me to even begin to create the work that I do. The work of Malie Meyer, Haunani-Kay Trask, Noelle Kahanu are major inspirations to me, who help me to see what's possible in terms of the scale and impact within Hawaiian communities. In addition, organizations within Hawai’i such as Pu’uhonua Society, Waiwai Collective, 'Ohina, as well as the annual group exhibition CONTACT (2014-2019), have really set a precedent for the work that I do.

What is one word that describes something you are excited about for the lāhui? 

Reclamation

What is one word that describes a pressing issue that is facing our lāhui? 

Water