"“The Stones We Stack”: Pōhaku and Protection on Mauna Kea"
Tuesday, October 6, 4:45 PM
Goldwin Smith Hall, G22
Abstract
This talk examines practices of erasure and resistance through the use of pōhaku (stone) on Mauna Kea, the volcano on Hawai‘i island, and within the boundaries of the Mauna Kea Science Reserve. Through a careful reading of the built environment, the talk centers the stones erected as shrines within the Mauna Kea Science Reserve, removed by Department of Land and Natural Resources officers, and discounted by archaeologists, only to be returned again and again by Kanaka Maoli kia‘i (land protectors). These stones are brought into dialogue with the Hale Pōhaku (stone house) architecture built for the astronomy industry in the 1980s, which became a site for direct action against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope from 2014-2019. Emphasizing practices of return and re-inscription, the talk argues for thinking with stone as a means to challenge colonial practices of architecture, aesthetics, and historical record keeping.
Biography
Caitlin Blanchfield is a historian of architecture, landscape, aesthetics, and visual culture. Her research addresses the role of modernist land management and design practices in projects of dispossession and colonization in North America and across the reaches of US empire, and focuses on how Indigenous material cultures and built environments challenge colonial systems and assert political relationships to place. She is the co-author of Significant Impact: Contesting Surveillance Infrastructure on Tohono O’odham Je’ved (Actar, 2026) and Modern Management Methods: Architecture, Historical Value, and the Electromagnetic Image (Columbia University Press, 2019). She is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History of Art and Architecture departments at Cornell University.
