Jaimey Hamilton Faris (or Jaimey Faris for short) is an arts educator, writer, community organizer and regenerative cultures facilitator based in Ka Pae 'Āina O Hawai'i. She is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory and affiliate faculty in Pacific Islands Studies, the Institute for Sustainability and Resilience, and International Cultural Studies at the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. She also teaches for the Confluence low-residency ecological and regenerative interdisciplinary arts MFA at the University of New Mexico. Her practice exists at the edges of teaching, theory, history, and art, where she imbues learning spaces with an ethics of care toward decolonial and eco-social futures. Currently, she’s working on a book about feminist care-based community art practices that support climate and water justice. She also runs a public arts and humanities collaboratory called Liquid Futures.
RESEARCH: Faris is the author of Uncommon Goods (Intellect 2013), which features art practices that expose the hidden social and environmental costs of global trade structures and capital infrastructure, the curator of Inundation: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific (2020) about current art and environmental activism in Oceania; and the editor of Almanac for the Beyond (2020) a volume of experimental eco-criticism devoted to critiques of petro-capital temporal structures, and more. Her recent articles about art and climate justice in Oceania include "Ocean Weaves: Reconfigurations of Environmental Justice in Oceania," (Feminist Review, 2022); "Art for Unsettling Times" (Tropic Editions, 2022); “Sisters of Ocean and Ice: On the Hydro-feminism of Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna’s Rise: From One Island to Another” (Shima, 2019); “Gestures of Survivance: Angela Tiatia’s Lick and Contemporary Environmental Performance Art in Oceania” (Pacific Arts, 2021); and “Interfacing in the Ocean’s Weave,” in Oceans Rising, ed. Daniela Zyman, (Sternberg Press, 2021). COMMUNITIES: Based in Honolulu since 2006, Faris has co-founded and co-directed a non-profit arts project space, OFF[hrs], directed UHM's artist residency program, and curated solo and group exhibitions. She serves on the Art Advisory Council for State Foundation for Culture and the Arts. Since 2008 she has also been interviewing Hawai'i's artists and is currently working on establishing a digital archive for their oral histories. She is a member of Oceania Observatory: Humanities for the Environment; Ecologies of Care: a network of artists, writers, and curators; WAC, the Women's Art Caucus; and WEAD: Women Eco Artist Dialog. |
FELLOWSHIPS and AWARDS: Faris has received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Hawai'i, College of Arts and Humanities; the Faculty Diversity Award, University of Hawaii’s Commission on Diversity; the Junior Faculty Research Award; the Technology, Society and Innovation Grant, from the University of Hawaii, Research Council; She has been recognized for her community organization work by the Hawaii People’s Fund and have been a Critical Studies Fellow at Cranbrook Academy of Art and Writer in Residence at Banff Center for Arts and Culture, and VASE visiting scholar at University of Arizona.