POW! WoW!
history
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Homegrown in Hawaii, POW! WOW! has since spread worldwide. In the decade following its inception POW! WOW! has grown into a global network of artists and events, with POW! WOW! festivals in over a dozen cities worldwide, producing hundreds of murals in over 60 festivals.
The founding principles
In 2010 the first POW! WOW! event was held in Hong Kong. With only enough budget to fly in a handful of artists and not enough to ship in their art, the small group of creators were tasked to make the work for the show on the spot in the gallery itself the week before the opening. With limited time the artists were encouraged to collaborate as much as possible, and the gallery doors were opened up so that viewers could come and watch the work being created. This situation that came out of necessity created the two founding principles of POW! WOW!: To value collaboration and appreciate the process of creating art just as much as the finished piece.
The first mural
The small gallery show then traveled to Hawai’i and was held in February of 2011 in a warehouse space in what was then a forgotten industrial part of Honolulu called Kaka’ako. Much like the first iteration in Hong Kong the artists collaborated in the gallery space for a week but on the night of the opening unexpectedly started to collaborate on a mural in the parking lot. This pivotal mural sparked a new direction for the fledgling event, with the size and public nature of murals lending itself to the two founding principles of POW! WOW!:
Process and Collaboration.
growth
From this first small gallery event and with its driving forces Jasper Wong, Kamea Hadar and Jeff Gress, POW! WOW! Hawaii quickly grew into an annual mural festival in Kaka’ako. Within a few years POW! WOW! was producing a 50+ murals with over 100 artists each year. As the week-long mural festival grew, other elements were added to the week. Gallery shows, lecture series, panel discussions, schools for art, photography and music, dance battles, street food, movie videos/premiers, and large scale concerts. POW! WOW! Hawaii has helped to transform and uplift the community of Kaka’ako through art.
Kamea hadar
POW! WOW! Worldwide Director
Kamea Hadar grew up in the worlds of his Japanese/Korean mother and Israeli father. He began studying drawing and painting from a young age. As a child he took classes at the Honolulu Art Academy and University of Hawaii; and spent periods living, studying and creating at the University of San Diego, Sorbonne in Paris, University of St. Louis in Madrid and the University of Tel Aviv, Israel.
Although Kamea’s work is based in traditional portraiture it has evolved o of the canvas to large scale murals and installations that can be found in cities around the world. He labels his work as “Hybridism”, a hybridization of traditional and modern culture.