CAFE
Marika Emi, editor
2022


Spiral bound
38 pages
7 x 9 inches
Edition of 250

Summary: CAFE is a zine documenting the Tropic Editions’ installation for Hawai‘i Triennial 2022 (HT22), at the Hawaii State Art Museum from February to May 2022.

CAFE was an experiment, informed by Tropic Editions as a press and organizing collective occupying a queer outsider/insider position on art and culture in the tropics. CAFE re-imagines a space on the ground floor of the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum previously occupied by several chef-driven museum cafes before a vacancy beginning in 2020. 

The notion of a Tropic Editions CAFE was dreamt up beyond the boundaries placed on us by the pandemic. It required a sense of intimacy that the quarantines, lockdowns, and mandates made difficult to maintain. It was designed to be a shared experience, built gradually through trust and collaborative creative processes, over time. Every physical and social element of the project was to evolve, just as the ideas behind past publication projects often evolve based on the relationship between the organizers’ and the collaborators’ dialectical vision. Our guiding principles and models of publishing were kept intact throughout the production phase of CAFE; the space must incorporate the tropical diaspora and engage participants in a sustained, critical manner. The process must be fluid, hybrid, non-hierarchical; the end result not presented for any specific audience, but accessible to all. The textual experience of a publication forms the basis of the spatial experience; this zine is one such record of its formation, but auxiliary to the project itself.

Featuring works by Nico Enos, Ayaka Takao, Chris Ching, Jasmine Reiko, Lise Michelle, Reise Kochi, FRNTBZNZZ. Select images by Vincent Bercasio, with text, design, and additional images by Marika Emi. Added support and gratitude to: Drew Broderick, Malia Gonzalez, Justin Nakasone, Natalia Da Silva, Alec Singer, Josh Tengan, Vincent Bercasio, Aaron Wong, and the staffs of Hawaii Contemporary and the Hawaii State Art Museum.