Mizu Wai /
Story Weaving East Maui Waterways
Corinne Okada Takara
2026 Visual Art Grant Recipient
Mizu Wai/Story Weaving East Maui Waterway is a community art initiative rooted in the ancestral relationship between water, wai, and people of East Maui. Grounded in Native Hawaiian epistemologies of ʻāina (stewardship) and pilina (relationality), this project integrates visual art, ecological mapping, and participatory workshops to illuminate water’s cultural, environmental, and spiritual currents as living carriers of moʻolelo (stories) and memory.
Corinne Okada Takara is an O’ahu artist, and community-based educator working at the intersection of ancestral craft, biology, and participatory design. A Yonsei kamaʻāina settler (fourth-generation half Japanese American in Hawaiʻi) and the daughter of a toy designer, her practice is rooted in playful exploration—using hands-on making as a way to open equitable and accessible conversations about innovation, technology, and care for place. Early in her career, Takara created mixed-media tapestries using Asian food wrappers, family fabrics, seeds, and rice bags to honor the resourceful creativity of her father’s childhood in the Pāʻia Maui sugar plantation. Over time, her work shifted toward collaborative, place-based practices grounded in living and biological materials to uplift community knowledge and invite more people to dream abundant futures.
okadadesign.com and nestmakerspace.weebly.com
Story Weaving East Maui Waterways
Corinne Okada Takara
2026 Visual Art Grant Recipient
Mizu Wai/Story Weaving East Maui Waterway is a community art initiative rooted in the ancestral relationship between water, wai, and people of East Maui. Grounded in Native Hawaiian epistemologies of ʻāina (stewardship) and pilina (relationality), this project integrates visual art, ecological mapping, and participatory workshops to illuminate water’s cultural, environmental, and spiritual currents as living carriers of moʻolelo (stories) and memory.
Corinne Okada Takara is an O’ahu artist, and community-based educator working at the intersection of ancestral craft, biology, and participatory design. A Yonsei kamaʻāina settler (fourth-generation half Japanese American in Hawaiʻi) and the daughter of a toy designer, her practice is rooted in playful exploration—using hands-on making as a way to open equitable and accessible conversations about innovation, technology, and care for place. Early in her career, Takara created mixed-media tapestries using Asian food wrappers, family fabrics, seeds, and rice bags to honor the resourceful creativity of her father’s childhood in the Pāʻia Maui sugar plantation. Over time, her work shifted toward collaborative, place-based practices grounded in living and biological materials to uplift community knowledge and invite more people to dream abundant futures.
okadadesign.com and nestmakerspace.weebly.com