SHIMA, part I

Dane Nakama
Erin Nagamine
Emma Jane Chiyoko Oshiro
shō yamagushiku
Shalev & Bambi

curated by Josh Tengan

January 23 – February  21, 2026

An Ode to Grandma, 2023, from Champurū (2024) by Emma Jane Chiyoko Oshiro

SHIMA is the first iteration of a new exhibition series exploring Okinawan life in relation to Hawaiʻi, Uchinā, and the Moana.  Part 1 explores shima not only as an ʻisland’ or ‘village’ – but as a relational space and a psychic condition, being held by more than one place and time at once – as Okinawan identity in Hawaiʻi is shaped by plantation histories, U.S. militarization, community organizing and resistance, being local, and emergent conversations around Indigeneity.

Bringing together artists from Hawaiʻi and Continental diaspora, SHIMA traces how Uchinānchū reweave connections to Uchinā through stories, images, words, and sound, while finding home in a Kānaka ʻŌiwi homeland. The exhibition series asks: How is Okinawan identity constructed in, and shaped by Hawaiʻi? How have Okinawans shaped local culture? What does it mean to practice responsibility to Uchinā and Hawaiʻi?

SHIMA considers Okinawan identity in Hawaiʻi as an evolving practice carried across archipelagoes and empires and mapped through relational networks–digital and IRL– connecting Hawaiʻi, Okinawa, Japan, Moananuiākea, and beyond. Drawing on Lana Lopesi’s work on Moana cosmopolitan imaginaries, the project approaches Okinawan diaspora as an oceanic, networked condition in which shima and ʻāina are interconnected worlds in flux.