Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina

Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina (The Eyes of the Land), an independent video production team formed by Joan Lander and Puhipau, emerged from the social and environmental justice movements that spread across the Hawaiian archipelago during the 1970s and persist to this day. Active since 1982, Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina developed out of a shared belief in the power of media and its revolutionary potential in education. Together, Lander and Puhipau documented and perpetuated Hawaiian culture, history, language, art, music, dance, environment, and the politics of independence and self-determination in Hawaiʻi, Moananui, and elsewhere.

Lander moved to Hawaiʻi in 1970 and became involved in video production in 1974 with the intent of recording and documenting stories underrepresented in the media. In parallel, Puhipau returned home from the U.S. after working as a seaman, reconnecting to his culture by way of Sand Island—one of a few fishing villages left on Oʻahu at the time. From September 1979 to January 1980, the Department of Land and Natural Resources threatened and arrested Sand Island residents, flattened their homes, and destroyed their livelihoods. Puhipau’s resolute response, spoken defiantly as he was being handcuffed, attests to the reality of the situation: ʻDogs in our own country. This is how you treat Hawaiians, ladies and gentlemen. Put them in jail, knock down their homes, kill their culture, eliminate the Hawaiian race.’

Following this state-sanctioned eviction, Puhipau and Lander met during the post-production of The Sand Island Story (1981), a documentary by Victoria Keith and Jerry Rochford of Windward Video. Not long after, Lander and Puhipau collaborated on their first production, A Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific, followed by a series of Hawaiian studies programs developed for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, commissioned by the Department of Education. Puhipau has said of Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina’s origins that it was established ‘for one purpose only, and that purpose is to speed up the process towards sovereignty.’

In addition to their ninety-plus programs, Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina maintains an extensive moving-image collection of over 8,000 videotapes—thousands of hours of original footage ‘left on the cutting room floor’, so to speak—which includes entire speeches at historic events, interviews with community members (including Hawaiian-language interviews), songs, chants, performances and demonstrations, art-making, agriculture/aquaculture techniques, ahupuaʻa management, documentation of public hearings, tribunals, evictions, efforts to protect sacred landscapes, struggles for land rights, and the movement to regain recognition of Hawai‘i’s sovereignty. Needless to say, their personal archive, which is in the process of being cataloged and digitized, has served and will continue to serve as an indispensable resource for generations of researchers, writers, artists, curators, educators, organizations, institutions, and communities interested in recent histories of Hawaiʻi from 1974 to 2010.

As part of HT22, Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina presents some of their most important documentaries, which have aired on television in Hawaiʻi, Aotearoa, Japan, Mexico, U.S., Canada, and Europe. Films selected include A Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (1983), Waimānalo Eviction (1985), Pacific Sound Waves (1986), Ho‘āla Hou—A Look to the Future (1987), Nā Wai E Ho‘ōla i Nā Iwi—Who Will Save the Bones? (1988), Contemporary Hawaiian Artists (1989), Pele’s Appeal (1989), Ahupua‘a, Fishponds and Lo‘i (1992), Kaho‘olawe Aloha ‘Āina (1992), Act of War—The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation (1993), Mākua—To Heal the Nation (1996), and Mauna Kea—Temple Under Siege (2005). In addition, these works will be supplemented by unreleased archival footage.