Dane Hiʻipoi Nakama: Dear Uncle Tani,

January 3 – April 4, 2026

OPENING RECEPTION

Saturday, January 3 from 7 – 10PM

Dear Uncle Tani,

My name’s Dane, and I’m your grand-nephew. We never had the chance to meet, but I’ve been compared to you my whole life. Your sister, Michiko, always spoke fondly of you. She said you were quite the artist. And having seen your drawings myself, I’d have to agree. I’m an artist, too. All my life your sister encouraged me to hold onto that dream — to be more like you. She passed away last October at the age of 104 – and I like to think that she’s found you again.

I’ve been spending time with your photographs lately — the ones you took during the war. And something in them has been speaking to me. Not just the composition, or the light, but the way you chose to see the world so similar to me. Sometimes, looking at them, I wonder: did we share something deeper than just a love for making? The photos you took of your troop mates – the way you captured them in bed, smoking, drinking, playing music, cutting each other’s hair — there’s a tenderness in them. A closeness that feels like love. Uncle… did you love the same way I do?

Dear Uncle Tani, is an exhibition of artworks and writing by Dane Nakama and their grand – uncle, Kiyoshi “Tani” Iguchi. Through Iguchi’s letters and photographs—relics of a life cut short by World War II—Nakama charts the tremors between memory and myth, tenderness and solitude, uncovering how the echoes of nationalism continue to haunt the living.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Dane Hiʻipoi Nakama (b. 1999, Honolulu, Hawai‘i) is a Japanese-Uchinanchu ceramicist, painter, and educator whose work bridges local aesthetics, folklore, and decolonial critique. Raised on O‘ahu and currently based on Tongva land, Nakama’s interdisciplinary practice is both highly referential and disarmingly tender—addressing settler colonialism, ancestral memory, and island identity through a visual lexicon that includes seashells, li hing mui, sand, and clay. Nakama has exhibited across Hawai‘i and the US continent, and is also the co-founder of the small arts school and ceramic studio known as fishschool Hawai‘i. They received their BFA from the California Institute of the Arts and are currently pursuing an MFA in ceramics at UCLA.

CURATOR

This exhibition is curated by Bella Marinos, GCAC Curatorial Associate.