Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Coming to Hawaii

Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities is pleased to bring to Hawai‘i Key Ingredients: America by Food, a Smithsonian Institute-designed traveling exhibit. The exhibit will travel to two locations on O‘ahu and to both Maui and the Big Island, where the public will be able to participate in a variety of related fun and educational community programs.  These programs will be developed by each host institution in partnership with the project’s lead scholar Loretta Pang, Professor Emeritus, Kapi‘olani Community College.

Key Ingredients presents the entire landscape of America’s past and present through food—its origins, production, distribution, uses, significance—and the complex relations that communities have with food.  Each community, each region is part of the kaleidoscope of the American food experience.  Hawai`i in that sense is part of the whole and shares in America by food (think hamburgers, Thanksgiving turkey, etc.).  Yet Hawai`i also is distinct from the whole.   
 
Hawai`i:  A Place Apart is the state theme for the Key Ingredients exhibit tour.  It is literally descriptive of our state in relation to the nation.  We are the only island state, positioned in mid-Pacific, with features that distinguish us from the continental states in ways such as these: distinctive native population and host culture; historical development; Pan-Pacific and Asian cultural exchanges; immigrant experience, and the like.  How have these factors influenced food in Hawai`i?  And how has Hawai`i in turn influenced America’s history with food?  Hawaii has functioned as both a receiver and transmitter of foods and rich food cultures.   

Each host site will create local programs to supplement the national “Key Ingredients: America By Food” exhibit.  These programs are designed as fun and engaging ways to remember the past and explore the ways your local communities have contributed to the history of food in Hawai‘i and the United States overall.  

This traveling exhibit will be featured at the following locations:

Kapi‘olani Community College	June 28-August 23, 2008
Kapolei Public Library	August 30-October 20, 2008
Lyman Museum	October 27-January 31, 2008
Maui Community College	February 14-April 12, 2009

Please visit www.museumonmainstreet.org or www.keyingredients.org for more information, or contact the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities at info@hihumanities.org or (808) 732-5402.

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Key Ingredients is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Federation of State Humanities Councils.  Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress, the John S. and James L Knight Foundation, and The Hearst Foundation.