Marques Hanalei Marzan is a member of the Vilcek Foundation’s Arts Advisory Committee, which provides expert guidance to the foundation on the development of exhibitions and programs related to arts and culture.

Marzan is the cultural advisor and the Wayne Pitluck and Judith Pyle Curator for Cultural Resilience at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, where he works to integrate Indigenous knowledge and practice into the museum field. In his capacity as the museum’s cultural advisor, Marzan assists cultural practitioners and the wider community in engaging with ancestors and traditional modes of creative expressions.

Born and raised in Kāneʻohe, Oʻahu, Marzan is a visual artist working across a diversity of disciplines. Widely regarded as one of the foremost Hawaiian fiber artists working today, Marzan’s practice spans traditional Hawaiian fiber techniques, including plaiting and cordage, as well as contemporary approaches. Marzan trained under Hawaiian master weavers, including Julia Minerva Kaʻawa and Esther Kakalia Westmoreland, building a technical foundation that he has since extended into his own experimental and interdisciplinary work, which draws on chant, dance, and storytelling alongside fiber craft. 

His pieces are included in the permanent collections of the Peabody Essex Museum, the Field Museum, the Linden Museum, and Te Papa Tongarewa, among others. In 2018, Marzan was commissioned by the British Museum to create a peʻahi, a traditional crescent-shaped chiefly fan, for an exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s voyage to the Pacific. 

Marzan has represented Hawaiʻi at major gatherings of Pacific artists, including four editions of the Festival of Pacific Arts, as well as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. 

He is an active mentor within his community, teaching sustainable gathering practices and Hawaiian fiber techniques to a new generation of practitioners in an effort to bolster endangered practices among younger Native Hawaiians. Through his art and museum work, Marzan works to advance the recognition of Indigenous voices and frameworks within contemporary cultural institutions and American society more broadly.