Healoha Johnston

Healoha Johnston is the Director of Cultural Resources and Curator for Hawaiʻi and Pacific Arts and Culture at the Bishop Museum. Johnston’s research and exhibitions explore connections between historic visual culture and contemporary art, with a particular focus on the sociopolitical underpinnings that inform those relationships. Since joining the Bishop Museum in 2022, her practice has centered on the design and implementation of Pacific Pipeline, an international initiative rooted in rematriation. Her curated exhibitions include Hoʻoulu Hawaiʻi: The King Kalākaua Era (2018–2019), for which the accompanying exhibition catalog received multiple awards including the 2019 Samuel M. Kamakau Book of the Year Award from the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association; and Lisa Reihana: Emissarie (2019); an exhibition that for the first time brought together the groundbreaking video iPOV [infected]and telescope installation with the complete set of French nineteenth-century wallpapers that Reihana critically recast.

Previously, Johnston was the Chief Curator and Curator of the Arts of Hawaiʻi, Oceania, Africa, and the Americas at the Honolulu Museum of Art and Curator for Asian Pacific American Women’s Cultural History at the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. Johnston holds graduate degrees in Art History and in Pacific Island Studies from the University of Hawai‘i.

Articles Related to Healoha Johnston

2024-11-25

Center for Curatorial Leadership Announces 2025 Fellows

The Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) is pleased to introduce the 2025 cohort of Fellows. Now in its eighteenth year, the CCL Fellowship is the preeminent leadership program for curators, providing them with the skills and tools needed to become visionary leaders of art museums and cultural institutions worldwide. This year, ... Read More >