You May Be Loved
2025
Sound with sculptural markers

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST 

Born and raised on O‘ahu, Brandon Ng sees his identity as an outcome of Hawai‘i’s settler colonialism history and cultural sense of place. Working in various mediums, he deconstructs historical narratives, systems of exclusion and oppression, and intersections of place, identity, and positionality.

This installation dives into the cultural complexities of the song “Aloha ‘Oe” in relation to power, nostalgia, and narrative. Originally composed as a love song by Queen Lili‘uokalani between 1877 and 1878, it later became known as a lament of farewell. Ng leans into these two lyrical interpretations to examine how concepts of love and loss can function simultaneously through the lens of Hawai‘i’s history and culture. 

By honoring the elegant poetics of the Queen’s arrangement, through a process of lyrical distillation, Ng samples different moments within the composition and couples them with cultural imagery that rubs up against collective notes of Hawai‘i-ness. As the work meanders the grounds of Foster Botanical Garden, visitors experience the activation of the land through the emotive tenets of Queen Lili’uokalani’s “Aloha ‘Oe”. This movement refers to the song’s origin story, where Queen Lili’uokalani ruminated on the composition as she returned from Maunawili to her home in Honolulu.