To try to illustrate this year’s theme of “Walk together with Aloha, pass the baton to a sustainable and peaceful future”, we employed various pieces of iconography with a focus on Japanese and Hawaiian culture.

Students from Baldwin High School in Maui

For the idea of the front panel, we sought to focus on how we share our cultures and give each other a helping hand. It depicts two types of footwear, the geta, and slippers, walking together on a broad path. The staircase symbolizes the hardships we may go through, illuminated and guided by our cross-cultural connection. At the same time, the Earth at the top represents the “peaceful future” we aspire to realize collectively.

In the back panel of our design, we sought to emphasize the pair of hands, representing the action of passing on knowledge and resources to future generations. The taro, sustained by the waterfall, is a metaphor for the knowledge and resources passed on. As the waterfall provides and supports the taro’s growth, it symbolizes our current generation’s active contribution to expanding today’s knowledge and resources to help ensure they still exist in the future.

We explored life and environmental conservation through the side panels through the whale, pine tree, and ocean life. Additionally, the hooks hanging at the corners of the mikoshi represent the harvesting from the ocean in a traditional and more sustainable way, tying together our past and present roots.

The sun and moon in the side panels symbolize balance, as both are needed for life to thrive. The sun panel depicts a large pine tree and a lady tending to a smaller pine tree sprouting next to it. The pine tree is representative of the longevity of one’s life and the necessity to foster a better future for that life.

The sun symbolizes the ushering in of a new future, while the crane in the middle of the sun represents the happiness of the world’s stewards and future generations.

The moon panel depicts the ocean at night, containing a whale and coral reef, which are often associated with being the pinnacle of the ocean’s ecosystem, and represents our interconnected relationship with nature as well as the importance of conserving our current world for future generations.

On the roof, a rainbow goes from one corner of the mikoshi to the diagonal opposite to serve as a bridge. The purpose of the bridge is to show how people come together from all over the world to work towards the sustainable future we strive to achieve.