He ʻUpena No Ka ʻIke: Indigenous Pedagogy as Method, Memory and Creative Practice

This paper offers a reimagined literature review grounded in Kānaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiian) pedagogical practices, with a focus on decolonizing art and design education. Drawing on moʻolelo (story), lived experience, and Indigenous scholarship, it explores relationality, place-based learning, storytelling, and the role of challenge in creative practice. Rather than centering written texts alone, the paper engages knowledge held in the body, in land, in silence, and in breath. Written from the perspective of a Kānaka Maoli artist-educator, it affirms Indigenous ways of knowing as complete, self-determined systems that carry their own integrity and their own genealogy. The paper also acknowledges the tension of presenting Indigenous knowledge within written academic form, positioning writing as a partial and situated translation rather than a complete representation. It critiques institutional structures that marginalize Indigenous epistemologies and advocates for pedagogical approaches rooted in relationship, responsibility, and cultural continuity. Through the metaphor of the ʻupena (net), knowledge is framed as something woven through story and practice. This work contributes to ongoing efforts to decolonize design education by advancing embodied, accountable, and ancestral approaches to teaching, where creativity is inseparable from land, identity, and collective liberation.