Featured Member Profile

Formed in January 2009, Interisland Terminal supports emerging and established artists, filmmakers, architects, designers, musicians and writers in the Honolulu area. Aiming to make contemporary art, film and design accessible in terms of cost, location, and open hours, Interisland Terminal’s five co-founders constantly seek new ways to engage Hawaii audiences and broaden the bounds of creative possibility within their community. “We definitely set out to fill a cultural void,” say Ben Trevino and Wei Fang…

How did Interisland Terminal come to be?

The five of us had all been part of other institutions in arts and culture in Hawaii. At some point or another we had all experienced the same sort of limitation in terms of what the existing conceptions of arts and culture could support. With Interisland Terminal, we try to present exhibitions that no other organization in Honolulu would be able to pull off.

Please tell us about Interisland Terminal’s mission.

Long term, Interisland Terminal is setting out to create a sustainable environment of innovation in Honolulu. Our belief is that a thriving arts and culture community is an essential component — if not a prerequisite — to a high-performing city. Our contemporary art, design, and film presentations are programmed to be high quality exhibits that we think no other institution would be able to present. The hope with each exhibit is that by continuing to push the quality and availability of ideas, we’ll directly stimulate creativity locally, or indirectly give creative people and innovators a reason to stay in Hawaii.

Could you give us an example of one of your exhibitions that addresses your mission?

Our summer program will be a “pop-up” bookstore called Reedspace HNL featuring art/design/architecture titles. The inspiration for this program was our desire to see a return of independent bookshops to Honolulu — stores that feature thoughtfully selected books to nurture the intellect and creative capital of this community. Our hotel partner, the Waikiki Parc, is providing us with a fantastic space. Renowned graphic designer and brand developer Jeff Staple is curating the bookstore’s selection and is also coming here to lead a workshop for local graphic designers. While our program content focuses on film, design, and contemporary art, these three areas serve as vehicles for our overarching mission, which is to cultivate an ecosystem for innovation and nurture the creative capital of this community.

Your website explains that your staff is “simultaneously located in Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, and with a footprint in the Asia-Pacific [region] and Europe.” Could you explain how that works?

Between the five of us, we do a lot of traveling. Specifically, though, our film curator splits his time between Honolulu and Los Angeles, and our contemporary art and design curator splits her time between Honolulu and New York. Additionally, our film programmer regularly travels to festivals around the Pacific Rim and has a lot of resources to coordinate programs in that sphere.

Please tell us about Interisland Terminal’s inaugural Competition for New Community Architecture: what were the criteria and where can we see the winning designs?

The Competition for New Community Architecture was conceived as an outlet for the individual talent we know exists in the Honolulu architecture community, but which has few opportunities to express itself. The local market for architectural services is concentrated in commercial development and in hotels. Our idea was to invite teams of one or two to design a solution to a real operational problem facing a local non-profit organization. Opportunities to see an individual’s design built and put to use are rare, but the winner of our competition does get that opportunity.

The Competition for New Community Architecture has probably been our best success to date. We found a enthusiastic and supportive partner in Ballet Hawaii. We received a lot of support from the community in our fund-raising effort. On top of all of that, we were able to field an incredible jury. Most importantly, participation from the architects exceeded expectations, and their work was really dynamic.

Selections of the winning design are available on our website, while selections from the first and second honorable mentions are available on our blog.

What exhibition or event is in your “Pipe Dream” file?

We’d really like to bring in a Brazilian design show to Interisland Terminal, but it involves shipping a container of furniture across the continental U.S. and then halfway across the Pacific Ocean… Earlier this year we developed a program called Kunstfilm, which is a film program focused on features about art and design to be shown in a temporary cinema space erected just for the films. The design is ready and we’re waiting for the right space.

What motivated you to become a member of Fractured Atlas?

We learned about the organization through friends and colleagues of ours who are film producers and other cultural workers in NYC. The structure and requirements of our previous fiscal sponsor in Honolulu were a bit too rigid and not a great fit for the scale and scope of our organization. We were interested in working with Fractured Atlas because of its focus on the arts.

How do you use your Fractured Atlas membership?

At this point, we primarily use the membership for the fiscal sponsorship program, which has been huge help in facilitating the receipt of donations from our supporters. We also find that explaining the relationship we have with Fractured Atlas is a great way to open a conversation with people in our community about Interisland Terminal’s strategic development goals, as well as about funding for the arts in general.

What’s up next at Interisland Terminal?

The next project is the retail experience that I mentioned earlier, ReedSpace HNL. Then, sometime in October, we’re going to present work from sculptor Heather Rowe.

How can we learn more about and interact with Interisland Terminal?

Step one: bookmark www.interislandterminal.org. From there you can view all of our current/past/upcoming exhibits, sign up for our mailing list and view updates on our blog. Both the exhibit pages and the blog entries are open for comments, which we love getting.

You can also become our fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. We’re active in both of these communities and they’re both great ways to see what we’re up to and to contact us.