Māhealani Dudoit & Ian MacMillan

Arts Residencies

Congratulations to the 2018 Arts Residency Winners!

Māhealani Dudoit Undergraduate Residency

Gregory Pōmaikaʻi Gushiken is a queer Kanaka Maoli poet, ethnic studies scholar, and graduate of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa English and Political Science departments
from the Waiʻanae Coast of Oʻahu. Curating the intergenerational anxieties of settler colonialism, his work has appeared in the Hūlili Journal of Hawaiian Well-Being, Mānoa Horizons, and Hawaiʻi Review.  

Ian MacMillan Residency

A two time Semi-Finalist at Brave New Voices, Serena Ngaio Simmons (Ngāti Porou) is a writer, performer, and activist with a degree in English from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. A member of Pacific Tongues, a non-profit cultivating an active Oceanic community of writers and educators, Serena has grown from a youth poet into a poetry facilitator role over her six year involvement, teaching writing workshops across both Hawai'i and New Zealand. She is also a story facilitator for Hawai’i Women in Filmmaking (a filmmaking agency for cis, trans, and non-binary teen girls). A featured performer at TedX Honolulu 2013, Serena was awarded the Ernest Hemingway Award for Undergraduate Poetry in Spring 2014 and was featured in LitHub’s 2016 article “Six Pacific Islander Poets You Should Know." Digging into such themes as diaspora, identity conflict, mana wahine, and home in her writing, her work has been featured in the Oceanic zine Manavahine, Hawaiʻi Review, Blackmail Press, and Ora Nui. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Indigenous Politics at UHM.

Māhealani Dudoit Graduate Residency

leilani portillo is a queer multiracial kanaka maoli poet that was born and raised in the Bay Area. She resides in Mānana, HI and is working on her MA in Poetry at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Most of her work focuses on multiracial Hawaiian identity in the diaspora and reconnecting to Hawaiian culture and values.