Forthcoming Exhibition: “Hawai‘i is not the United States, but it is your Future”—Oct. 30-Dec. 12

A solo exhibition by Sean Connelly, Hawai'i is not the United States, but it is your Future, invites viewers to consider the built environment as oceanic-an interconnected system requiring collective cultural efforts to sustain. Presented by NYU's Asian/Pacific/American Institute, the exhibition will be on view at 20 Cooper Square, first floor gallery, from Thursday, October 30 through Friday, December 12, 2025, with an opening reception on Wednesday, October 29.

This exhibition, complemented by events on November 13 and December 3, marks Connelly's first solo presentation in New York City. It follows a presentation of ongoing and collaborative projects that have been exhibited at ii Gallery and Honolulu Museum of Art (Oahu, Hawai'i) and most recently at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. In this exhibition, Connelly invites people to consider daily life from an oceanic vantage: a living archipelago; interdependent, navigated, and sustained by collaborative care.

The exhibition and all related events are free and open to the public.

Exhibition Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 12-6 p.m. See A/P/A webpage for details or contact the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at [email protected] or 212.998.3700.

Wednesday, October 29, 6-8 p.m.
Opening Reception: Hawai'i is not the United States, but it is your Future
20 Cooper Square, first floor gallery

A reception celebrating the opening of Hawai'i is not the United States, but it is your Future, a solo exhibition by Sean Connelly, the Asian/Pacific/American Institute's 2025 Artist-in-Residence, will feature brief remarks from the artist and special reading of creative works.

To register, please visit the event page.

Thursday, November 13, 2025, 6-8 p.m.
Vā Moana and Hawai'i Futures
20 Cooper Square, Room 101

A conversation between the artist Sean Connelly and Professor Albert Refiti (Auckland University of Technology).

To register, please visit the event page.

Wednesday, December 3 , 6-8 p.m.
Closing Artist Talk for Hawai'i is not the United States, but it is your Future
20 Cooper Square, Room 101

The artist Sean Connelly reflects on his year-long residency, and shares his curatorial process and vision for Hawai'i is not the United States, but it is your Future.

To register, please visit the event page.

For more information, email [email protected] or call 212.998.3700.

Subways: 6 (Astor Place), R, W (8th Street)

About Sean Connelly
Born and raised in Honolulu, Sean Connelly is an artist and building practitioner working collaboratively across sculpture, architecture, film, and cartography. Connelly's practice engages deeply with grassroots interventions and supports Native liberation, food sovereignty, land justice, and cultural resurgence centering 'āina (Land / That Which Feeds).

As founding director of After Oceanic Built Environments Lab and the nonprofit Hawai'i Nonlinear, Connelly actively cultivates ancestral knowledge, ecological insight, and social justice to transform built environments into living archives of intergenerational healing. Collaborating closely with cultural bearers, creative practitioners, and Indigenous experts across Pae 'Āina Hawai'i (Hawaiian Islands), Connelly's work centers grassroots communities of care, actively shaping liberated oceanic futures. He is the 2025 Artist-in-Residence at the A/P/A Institute at NYU.