More exciting Hawai’i-made contemporary art goes on view tonight at thirtyninehotel when the exhibition “And Justice for All: political killings and other state-sanctioned terror” opens at 6pm. Included in the show is Alan Konishi, who manages the metal shop and ceramics studio at the Academy’s Art Center at Linekona. That’s him sitting in front of his installation “Whitewash,” his statement on viral colonialism and political killings. Look closely at those faux-bucolic scenes on the wallpaper and the whitewashed objects of Japanese-American daily life.

Exhibition Dates   October 31 – November 29
Opening Reception   Friday, Nov. 7, 6-9pm
Consciousness-raising performance by Foreign Agents (DJs Cookiehead Jenkins, Count `Weevil, and Mano Lopez) at 7pm

Special programming
Roundtable Discussion
“Disappearing Act: an in-depth dialogue on the treatment of political killings and other states of terror in film”
Thursday, Nov. 20, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
University of Hawai‘i-Mnoa, Moore Hall, Room 423

Dance Performance Tangentz, Butoh performance group
Friday, Nov. 21, 7:00 p.m.
thirtyninehotel 

The mixed-media art exhibition “And Justice for All: political killings and other forms of State-sanctioned terror” features the work of five Hawai`i-based artists and graphic campaign materials produced by the And Justice for All Collective, made up of artists and University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa students and faculty. 

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. The tail end of America’s pledge of allegiance. By using only a fragment of the entire promise, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” these words either embrace a sense of conviction and hopefulness for the future, or, conversely, a sense of falsity, of betrayal and sarcasm. Clearly, America has yet to make good on its pledge to deliver justice for all. This fact is evidenced in the political killings and terror implemented daily by one of the many divisions of Homeland “Security” and the consent of political killings and other forms of government-authorized violence in the absence of action against them. 

The And Justice for All project is connected to the efforts of the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective (CFFSC), a group of scholars and activists in the United States and the Philippines dedicated to the examination of and opposition to U.S. historical and contemporary modes of domination in the Philippines and elsewhere. In the Philippines alone there have been more than 850 recorded extrajudicial killings since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was elected in 2001. 

And Justice for All puts these politically motivated killings in the context of a long history of U.S. military domination in the Philippines and elsewhere, domination that has produced “states of terror” ranging from intimidation of labor organizers, journalists, and minority communities of all kinds to the physical abuse, arrest, detainment, and abduction of community activists. And Justice for All aims to highlight the links between the Philippines and other sites and practices of terror. For Hawai‘i, a key site in U.S. relations in Asia and the Pacific region, connecting the political killings in the Philippines to other patterns of domination is an urgent and necessary task.  

ARTWORK
And Justice for All features the work of Nathan Balcombe, Joe Bright, Gaye Chan, Alan Konishi, and Lian Lederman, who consider issues, such as political killings, disappearances, abductions, and colonialism—underscoring and commenting on the effects of a dominant culture’s rule with unjust, violent, and often invisible hands.  

And Justice for All was co-organized by Vernadette Gonzales and Trisha Lagaso Goldberg. Thirytninehotel Gallery Director and Curator Trisha Lagaso Goldberg curated the exhibition.