LIHUE — An artist showcase on Thursday will mark the opening of the Kikuchi Center which is located inside the Kauai Community College Learning Resource Center, more commonly known as the LRC.
“It is extremely exciting to our community, to our campus, and to those who knew Pila Kikuchi to that his become a reality,” said Kauai Community College Chancellor Margaret Sanchez. “Dr. Pila Kikuchi was a beloved long-term instructor at our college. Many, many people on this island remember him fondly as an instructor at our college, and also as an extremely well-known, world-renowned archaeologist and anthropologist.”
The public is invited to the showcase that starts at 4 p.m. on Thursday when artist Carol Araki Wyban will present her book and artwork, “Tide and Current: Fishponds of Hawaii.”
Organizers said the Kikuchi Center’s opening event will showcase efforts to preserve the legacy of the late archaeologist and Emeritus Professor William “Pila” Kikuchi and his work with fishponds. Art inspired by Kikuchi’s research has been exhibited at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and the Volcano Art Center on the Big Island. The artwork will now have a permanent home at the Kikuchi Center.
“We are super, super grateful to Carol Wyban, a very talented artist who knew Pila Kikuchi,” Sanchez said. “It is very fitting that her art is with us, and we are super grateful that she thought of us to donate her art.”
Kikuchi’s career in archaeology and anthropology spanned five decades, and Kauai Community College Archivist Jason Ford has been leading the effort to archive and digitize the Kikuchi Collection since 2022.
Ford said his team has been prioritizing materials that are most beneficial to local and Pacific Region researchers. The materials are of digital display quality.
The results of Ford’s efforts are now partially available online at www.kikuchi.omeka.net. This information include copies of Kikuchi’s “Archeology on Kauai” newsletter and fishpond notes.
“With the Kikuchi Collection containing a variety of multimedia materials, there remains a lot of items to be digitized for inclusion in the online repository,” Ford said. “We have made great progress in getting some of Kikuchi’s famous and lesser known research online, thus, making the online repository available to the public sooner rather than later. I know the community has been waiting on the repository, in some cases, for decades. We are excited to be able to offer this now.”
Artist Wyban’s art highlights the importance of Hawaiian fishponds that she describes as a vital link to ancient Hawaiian practices of sustainable land and water use. She has been working at maintaining and reviving ancient fishponds across the state using Kikuchi’s research as a guidebook.
“Fishponds are a window into ancient Hawaii and how the Hawaiians developed the land and water in a conscious, sustainable manner,” Wyban said. “They are a resource for the future because they can still be revived and used for food production, education, and to teach people the importance of working with nature.”
The opening of the Kikuchi Center marks a significant step in making Kikuchi’s work accessible to the public and promoting ongoing education and research on Hawaiian fishponds.
