British Museum · Great Court · Rapa Nui
Hoa
Hakananaiʻa
'lost, hidden or stolen friend'
01 — Presence
You are standing before an ancestor.
What do you feel before you know anything?
Carved from dark basalt. Nearly a thousand years old. Standing here since 1869. The name itself is a question.
02 — Relationship
At the feet of Hoa Hakananaiʻa,
there is an offering.
touch to place an offering
For the people of Rapa Nui, this figure is not a museum object. The offering is a gesture of continued relationship — proof that the connection was never broken, only interrupted.
03 — Listen
This object has a voice.
More than one.
This is one entry point. Community voices from Rapa Nui — speaking to the figure, not about it — would be another. What if the Museum sourced both?
04 — Contested Ground
1868. Taken from Orongo by the crew of a British ship. It has been in London for 157 years.
The people of Rapa Nui have formally requested its return. The British Museum has not agreed. The name knew this before we did.
'Lost, hidden or stolen friend.'
05 — Your Turn
If you were deciding,
what would you do?
06 — The Framework
This is a pilot.
Not a product.
Digital as rehearsal space — where institutions try harder interpretations before committing to walls, where communities co-author encounters before permanent agreements.
What object?
Hoa Hakananaiʻa — the pilot. Any contested object — the framework.
Whose voices?
Rapa Nui community, sourced collaboratively. Speaking to the figure, not about it.
What's missing?
The offering. Relational depth. Honest acknowledgment of how it arrived.
What are we rehearsing?
An encounter the Museum hasn't yet been able to have in physical form.
07 — Coda
What if digital became the space
where the institution rehearses change?