On-View August 2 through September 26, 2025

 

Imagine you decide to start having conversations with homeless individuals. What would you say to the next unhoused person you encounter on the street?

 

"Displacement. Art of Surviving", the exhibition on view at the East Hawai'i Cultural Center from August 2 through September 26, with an opening at 6pm on August 1, explores how two artists, Willie Baronet and Franciszek Orłowski, examine that question. It also features photos from Puʻuhonua O Waiʻanae, the sanctuary community founded by “Aunty Twinkle” (Twinkle Borge, 1969-2024).

 

Like many of us, Willie Baronet wrestled with the awkwardness he felt whenever he passed a homeless person holding a sign asking for help. Unsure of the correct response, he would avoid eye contact while struggling with his moral obligations – until he decided to approach them and ask if he could buy their signs.

 

Says Baronet, who has been purchasing signs from homeless people since 1993 to use in his art installations, “Immediately the dynamic changed between us, as we both had something the other wanted…I began to see and hear them, and realized how vastly different they (and their stories) were from each other.” Hundreds of signs from his collection will be on view at EHCC. During the opening, at 7pm in EHCC’s Kahua ‘Elua theatre, Baronet will present images and talking about “Signs of Humanity” project, his 31-day, 24-city cross-country trek through the United States to engage with individuals and buy their signs.

 

Artist Franciszek Orłowski has developed camaraderie with homeless persons through deeply personal acts: after striking up a conversation with homeless persons, he would offer to swap personal belongings and clothing with them, stripping down to a vulnerable state in every sense of the word. These exchanged belongings are the basis of his work on view at EHCC.

 

Photographs from Puʻuhonua O Waiʻanae complement the installations by Baronet and Orlowski, allowing residents there to show themselves as they wish to be seen. For over a decade, the community on ‘Oahu founded by Aunty Twinkle has served as a refuge and place of empowerment for those shut out of conventional housing—many of them Native Hawaiian, many queer, many displaced by poverty or social expectations they could never meet.