YEvery year, the Kaka’ako neighborhood of Honolulu hosts artists from around the world for POW! WOW! Hawaii, an annual muralfest that transforms what used to be a gritty industrial area into a colorful and sometimes whimsical outdoor art gallery.
Area businesses allow the artists to use their building walls as canvases, and the results are spectacular. Some murals change from year to year, while others have remained on some buildings for years.
Travelers coming to Hawaii don’t typically think of street art as one of its attractions, but the murals convey a sense of place as much as Duke’s statue in Waikiiki. You could easily spend an afternoon wandering the neighborhood and taking in the sights, and the restaurants in the area offer some of Honolulu’s best dining options!
Pro tips:
Parking is available on the surrounding streets as well as in the SALT garage.
Want a Hawaiian dining experience? Stop at Highway Inn at SALT and order a signature Hawaiian combo plate, served on old school cafeteria-style trays.
Need to cool down but also feeling like an adult beverage? Also at SALT, Butterfly Ice Cream rotates their menu of flavors including classics like Strawberry as well as more spirited offerings containing whiskey, bourbon, prosecco and more.
Wow there are really beautiful artworks! Did you go there for vacation or are you living in Hawaii? Is there some sort of competition happening during this event or only painters gather to draw these beautiful arts?
I know @BorrisS appreciates street art a lot and might be interested in this as well!
Thank you for sharing these great photos and details with us, and thank you @DanniS , for tagging me.
What a great initiative! Really amazing illustrations, and I like very much the fact that, there is something for everyone, and for every style and taste.
PS: I’m sharing with you a street art illustration that I took in Sofia, few days ago.
Centered around a week-long event in Hawaii, POW! WOW! has grown into a global network of artists and organizes gallery shows, lecture series, schools for art and music, mural projects, a large creative space named Lana Lane Studios, concerts, and live art installations across the globe. The central event takes place during Valentine’s Day week in February in the Kaka’ako district of Honolulu, and brings over a hundred international and local artist together to create murals and other forms of art. The festival is expanding to cities and countries such as Taiwan, Long Beach, Israel, Singapore, Jamaica, Washington D.C., Guam, New Zealand, Germany and more.
I believe it’s invitation only, but I’m sure the lead directors (Jasper Wong and Kamea Hadar) would welcome any requests - they’re super nice guys!
Hello @BorrisS - that is very cool! I love outdoor art, whether it’s murals or sculptures … do you have a Google Maps list of the street art you’ve taken? I was going to create one but POW! WOW! already has one: http://www.powwowworldwide.com/festivals/hawaii/
I can’t wait for Google Maps to fully roll out AR - so much potential to enhance experiences such as this!
@ThereseHowe sounds like a great event, which showcases wonderful works of art. I really appreciate things like these! Thanks a lot for sharing this with us!
