Ke Kowa the space between

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2006.In my Nana's house ghosts lived in the cracks between the boards in the walls. Running my hand along tongue and groove one by sixes, I could feel the spirits waiting in the space between the boards. My hands skipping over those in-between spaces again and again brought me closer to them. Often, while lying on her bed and at night as I slept, I was aware of the spaces between where spirits of ancestors waited and whispered. In remembrance of my grandmother's house, I built with wood and paper and glass my own space between. Ke Kowa the space between is meant to recreate that ghost space, a physical space to be navigated by the body to "see" and move through all that the memory of my Nana's house represented. A kowa is a crack, an opening, a crevice in time and space and understanding. The space between of which I speak, write and build functions as connector and divider, boundary and bond, contact and union. These spaces between are separation, meeting, and communion. Ke Kowa speaks of the spaces between. It addresses space between ancestor and descendant, space between idea and institution, between 'au'a and 'ike, between woman and ghost, between viewer and viewed, between wekiu and alo pali, between dreaming and waking, between art and artifact. It is about the space between colonizer and malihini , desire and passion, adapted and assimilated, haunting and knowing. It refers to the space between knowing and seeing, between mauliola and mauli'awa , your breath and my breath, hurting and growing. It is about the space between my legs