Drawing Workshop with Artist Hayv Kahraman and Museum Malacologists

Saturday, April 19, 2025
10 a.m. to Noon
$25 General Admission
$20 Museum Members

Inspired by kāhuli and pupukanioe from Bishop Museum’s Malacology collection, artist Hayv Kahraman created the work “Mākua Valley” and “Fire Spiral” for Hawai‘i Triennial 2025 ALOHA NŌ currently on display at the Honolulu Museum of Art. In preparation for the Triennial, Kahraman worked with Bishop Museum scientists Norine Yeung and Kenneth Hayes and spent time sketching rare native snails and shells in the Malacology collection.

Bring your sketch book or journal, spend time in the Malacology collection, and draw whatever the collection inspires in you. This drawing workshop will be led by artist Hayv Kahraman in collaboration with Norine Yeung, Curator of Malacology, and Kenneth Hayes, Curator of Marine Malacology and Director of The Pacific Center for Molecular Biodiversity. Learn about rare Native Hawaiian snails from scientists who have dedicated their lives to protect them, spend time with live native nails and the Museum’s rare shell collection, and be inspired by the artist’s creative process.

Admission rate includes access to the Museum galleries for the day. Museum will provide pens, pencils, and paper, but participants are encouraged to bring your own materials. Light snacks and drink will be provided.

More about the Artist
Hayv Kahraman is known for her multifaceted practice, which encompasses painting, performance, and sculpture. Her work addresses radicalized gender and body politics, migrant consciousness, and the marginal spaces of diasporic life, drawing from her personal history as an Iraqi émigré first to Europe and then the United States. Kahraman’s canvases feature female figures that she describes as extensions of her own body; however, these women are not meant to exist as self-portraits. Rather, Kahraman views the figures as embodiments of a collective experience and reflections of the brown body indoctrinated into whiteness, representative of her effort to challenge the colonial legacy and dismantle European ideals. Fascinated by geometry and systems of symmetry, Kahraman often incorporates mirroring and abstract patterns into her compositions. Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include: Look Me in the Eyes, ICA SF, San Francisco (2024); The Foreign in Us, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston (2024); Ten Thousand Suns, Sydney Biennale 2024, Australia (2024); The inescapable interweaving of all lives, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2023); O Quilombismo, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin (2023); The Touch of Otherness, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Ga. (2022); and Gut Feelings, The Mosaic Rooms, London (2022). Kahraman’s work is in several important international collections including the British Museum, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami; The Barjeel Art Foundation Sharjah, UAE; MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; Pizzuti Collection of Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, N.C.; and Pérez Art Museum, Miami.