Hoʻākea Source 2025 Grant Awardees

TUTUVI TUTUVI TUTUVI

Colleen Kimura
2025 Grant Recipient

TUTUVI TUTUVI TUTUVI celebrates the vision, spirit and legacy of Colleen Kimura’s brand Tutuvi, and her surrounding arts community. The project consists of a theatrical fashion show that reimagines Tutuvi’s material archive from 1980 to the present, and an experimental short film and publication, which take the fashion show as an entry point for the narratives about place and people that the brand embodies. The project as a whole has been produced by a multigenerational team of creatives who built a collaborative vision for the show in order to present garments from Tutuvi’s past, present, and future – including set design, sound design, and projection. The fashion show took place in August 2024, and the team is now working on the production and presentation of the film and book, set to launch in summer 2025.

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Colleen Kimura (b. 1946) is an artist from Mōʻiliʻili. She received a B.A. in Art from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, and from 1972 to 1978 she ran Kimura’s—a studio, gallery, and venue—in Honolulu. In 1980, shortly after returning home to Hawai‘i from Fiji, where she was stationed for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer, Colleen transformed Kimura’s into Tutuvi, named after the Fijian word meaning ‘to wrap oneself up’. For decades, she has been known for her bold, graphic illustrations of the flora and fauna of the Pacific and her way of translating imagery into striking, colorful prints on textiles. Colleen’s practice is also characterized by her continued relationship with Hawaii’s art community, as she has continued to participate in and host exhibitions, performances, installations, collaborations, festivals, and markets for over five decades.