Celebrating art and aloha at the Hawai‘i Walls 2025 festival
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Summary
Hawai‘i Walls 2025 kicked off last week, bringing together over 50 artists to transform an urban Honolulu neighborhood with vibrant murals — including a community-painted piece that celebrates pride and place.
Hawaiian Airlines has been a proud supporter of the art festival for a decade, supporting community events and artists from across our global network.
Hawai‘i Walls is more than a showcase of murals — it’s a movement. As a long-time supporter of the local art festival, Hawaiian Airlines proudly supported this year’s cohort of artists from Hawaiʻi and around the world to transform a section of urban Honolulu with colorful murals and community celebrations.
The 13th annual Hawai‘i Walls festival, which took place from Sept. 15–21, brought together over 50 acclaimed artists to collaborate on large-scale murals, gallery exhibitions, artist talks and free public events. The gathering is hosted by World Wide Walls (formerly known as POW! WOW! Hawai‘i), a global network of artists and events that first took root in Honolulu.
Photo by Elyse Butler @oceanelyse
Jasper Wong, founder of World Wide Walls, was born and raised on Oʻahu and launched the festival with friends in 2010. Those initial events, which enlivened metropolitan areas with large-scale paintings and walkable art experiences, quickly gained notoriety and popularity. Today, World Wide Walls engages with mural, street and contemporary artists and hosts over 85 festivals across North America, Asia, Europe and the Pacific.
“We really believe in the impact that art can have on a community, not just in sharing stories, providing platforms and building bridges, but also in how it can create pride in places that may otherwise feel forgotten,” said Wong.
Photos by Hawaiian Airlines
The 2025 Hawaiʻi Walls festival centered around Farrington High School in Kalihi, an urban Honolulu neighborhood with one of the highest concentrations of public schools in the state. Home to a large and diverse population, Kalihi is considered a cultural melting pot, with various Pacific Islander and Asian groups making up its vibrant community.
“Kalihi was an important neighborhood for me to give back to because, in a lot of ways, I grew up there,” said Wong. “My mother had a grocery store across from Farrington High School, and I spent much of my childhood in that store.”
A section of the Hawaiʻi Walls 2025 community-painted mural | Photo by Brandon Shigeta @bshigeta
Over the course of a week, Wong and a team of volunteers and artists transformed the Farrington High School campus into an open-air gallery with over 50 permanent murals, including a 71-foot community-painted piece that depicts a playful “class photo” with multicultural characters and creative nods to the neighborhood’s unique roots and characteristics. Located near classrooms for special needs students, the mural now greets those students and their teachers with bursts of color and pride.
“[The mural] is meant to celebrate the diversity of Hawai‘i and Kalihi and help brighten up the school — especially for the local kids who learn and play on the campus every day,” Wong shared.
The massive paint-by-numbers mural, designed by Wong, was brought to life by students, families, teachers and community members working side by side. Hawaiian Airlines’ Team Kōkua employee volunteers joined in, rolling up their sleeves to paint their own section of the wall and honoring artists with fresh lei.
Members of Huakaʻi by Hawaiian were also invited to join a special tour of the Kalihi murals, where they had the chance to hear directly from the artists about the stories behind their larger-than-life creations.
Photos by Elyse Butler @oceanelyse
“This festival goes beyond creating art — it strengthens communities, uplifts local voices and opens doors for the next generation of Hawai‘i’s creators,” said Jennifer Gee, senior manager of partnerships and experiential marketing at Hawaiian Airlines.
“Working with World Wide Walls has allowed us to connect with communities and artists — not just across our Islands, but also throughout our global network — in a meaningful and colorful way,” she continued.
Hawaiian Airlines has been a proud and engaged sponsor of World Wide Walls and the Hawai‘i Walls festival for a decade. Our investment has ranged from lending volunteers at community events to providing financial contributions and travel support for participating artists from across our network.
The public is invited to explore this year’s murals at Farrington High School and the surrounding Kalihi neighborhood. Fans can also bring the art home with our downloadable paint-by-numbers sheet inspired by Wong’s community mural, shown and linked below.
