If you can read the ocean you will never be lost - Shannon Benine's Visual Art Portfolio

If you can read the ocean you will never be lost, 2014—ongoing

The remote Kalaupapa Peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi is a place of profound contradiction. It is a site of forced exile that became an unlikely home and a place of historical trauma that is now a living testament to resilience. This ongoing expanded documentary project documents the final years of its last registered residents at the sole remaining U.S. leprosy settlement.

Currently, only six people from the Hansen's disease registry remain in the Hawaiian Islands, with three residing at the Kalaupapa settlement and three at the hospital in Honolulu.

From 1866 to 1969, the Hawaiian government enforced a policy of forced exile, transforming Kalaupapa into a century-long prison for individuals diagnosed with Hansen’s disease (known in Hawaiian as Mai Ho'oka'awale, "the separating sickness").

The peninsula's geography, with the Pali (sea cliffs) plunging 2,000 feet into the Pacific and featuring the 26-switchback trail as the only land access, was seen by settlers as a barrier and a tool for isolation and severance. In contrast, for Native Hawaiians, they merely hiked the Pali or sailed the seas for a means of passage. The two separated portions of the island are known locally as "Topside" (the main portion) and "Backside" (the settlement's location). Today, access is also provided by an airport with one of the shortest landing strips in Hawaiʻi, a ten-minute flight from Topside.

This work provides a critical counter-narrative to previous authoritarian and colonialist accounts. While the historical narrative often centers on the efforts of figures like Saints Damien and Marianne Cope, this project restores the history of ʻohana (family) and compassion practiced by the original Native Hawaiian inhabitants who took in the first exiles as kin. The land's history is underscored by over 8,000 graves, a mix of both patients and ancient Hawaiian burials, and remains a permanent home for the banished.

As the granddaughter of white settlers who visited Molokaʻi but never the settlement, my decade-long commitment to this work is driven by a moral obligation to confront and preserve these complex, unspoken histories. My methodological approach uses an expanded documentary practice. This combines still color photography, moving images, and sound to complete sensitive portraits of the final residents and utilize archival materials from the Kalaupapa Museum. Gaining entry to the settlement is a difficult, multi-leg journey, a process I have successfully navigated four times.

Ultimately, this project seeks to honor the resilience and strength of the Kalaupapa community and address the powerful question of the land’s future. The settlement is currently administered by the Hawaiʻi Department of Health and the National Park Service. The future of the land is contested as local and Native Hawaiian descendants advocate for it to be returned to homestead status, opposing the National Park Service's desire for a permanent park.

My work becomes a critical effort to document the community's vision for a future where their stories are told with the dignity and completeness they deserve, with plans for exhibition at the Molokaʻi Public Library and the Kalaupapa National Historical Park & Museum.