A gallery reception on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus this Sunday will mark the Honolulu debut of Ocean of Peace, an exhibition of Micronesian art that first opened on Maui earlier this year. The opening runs from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the East-West Center Gallery and will include a gallery tour, live performances and refreshments.
The event is listed on the University of Hawaiʻi System calendar, which describes the reception as an opportunity to walk through the exhibition alongside artists and curators while enjoying performances tied to the show's themes. The same listing notes the exhibition is displayed alongside select treasures from the East-West Center's own collection, giving Honolulu visitors a chance to see the new work in dialogue with the center's existing holdings.
Ocean of Peace first opened at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in January 2026, according to the Bishop Museum. The Maui presentation featured six contemporary artists of Micronesian heritage — James Bamba, Carol Ann Carl, Gillian Dueñas, Kalany Omengkar, Anthony Watson and Lissette Yamase — per the Maui Arts & Cultural Center's exhibit page. The University of Hawaiʻi calendar listing for the Mānoa opening, however, describes the exhibition as featuring eleven contemporary artists, a discrepancy that the available sources do not resolve.
Work Spans Carving to Digital Rendering
The show brings together a wide range of media, including carving, painting, drawing, photography, poetry, sculpture, weaving and digital rendering, according to the university's calendar listing. That breadth reflects the exhibition's stated aim: the Bishop Museum reports that the artists integrate the beliefs and practices of their Micronesian cultures with lived experiences in the Hawaiian Islands to build connections across island chains.
Framed more broadly, Ocean of Peace envisions the Pacific region as a space of harmony and cooperation drawn from traditional values and cultural customs, the museum notes. The project traces back to a framework endorsed by Pacific Islands leaders in 2025, according to the museum's Celebrate Micronesia 2026 page.
Presenters and Curatorial Team
The exhibition is presented by the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in partnership with the East-West Center Arts Program and the Pacific Islands Development Program, per the center's exhibit details. Its curatorial team includes Jonathan Yukio Clark, Mary Therese Perez Hattori, Eric Chang and Annie Reynolds, according to the Bishop Museum's Celebrate Micronesia 2026 listing.
Timelines for the exhibition's various stops carry some open questions. The East-West Center states the Honolulu run will continue at the Mānoa gallery from Sunday's opening through January 10, 2027. Meanwhile, accounts of the Maui run's closing date diverge: the Maui Arts & Cultural Center's own exhibit page states the gallery show there closes on January 31, while a State Foundation on Culture and the Arts listing gives the Maui presentation's dates as January 2 through September 19, 2026 — the day before the Honolulu opening. Neither the exact closing date nor a fully verified artist roster for the Honolulu presentation has been independently confirmed.
For readers planning to attend Sunday's free reception, the East-West Center Gallery sits on the UH Mānoa campus. Those with questions about the exhibition can reach organizers by phone at 808-944-7111 or by email at [email protected], per the university's calendar posting.
