Textile Goddess Sculptures depicting Hawaiian Goddess Hina and Haumea.
About this interview
Swedish-born artist Anna Lindberg discusses her crocheted textile sculptures of two of the most ancient Hawaiian akua: Hina and Haumea. A meticulous researcher who studied religious history at the postgraduate level in Stockholm, Lindberg explains the concepts of akua and mana, and why Hawaiian divinity — rooted in nature, embracing both light and dark — drew her in.
Her Haumea, goddess of abundant nature and childbirth, holds the flowers of a Maui garden — ginger and hibiscus — as offerings of the earth’s bounty. Her Hina, goddess of the moon and of kapa making, is portrayed as a mother holding the infant demigod Māui, recalling the legend in which Māui snared the sun to slow its passage so his mother would have daylight enough for her creative work. Lindberg describes beginning her textile goddess series in 2020, and her practice of asking permission of the ancestors before depicting them.
