The Kōlea: A Name Rooted in Migration and Return
Hawaiian: Kōlea
English: Pacific Golden Plover
Turkish: Altın yağmurcunu (Pasifik altın yağmurcunu)
Sakha Turkic: Chuuskun
Studio Kōlea is named after the kōlea bird, whose annual migration across the Pacific reflects Ezgi Iraz’s own ancestral journey, from the Altai Mountains, through Istanbul, across Europe, and finally to Hawaiʻi. The kōlea does not migrate to escape. It migrates to return.
The name honors movement, memory, and belonging across cultures, languages, and oceans.
Studio Kōlea Values
Within systems built on speed, extraction, and exhaustion, other ways of being are already alive. Studio Kōlea is grounded in rest, care, and cultural remembrance. Our work is guided by the belief that slowing down is not a failure of ambition: it is a return to balance, to breath, and to what is sacred.
We create space for rest as a form of resistance, and for creativity as an act of care. Studio Kōlea honors making that is rooted in lineage, land, and lived experience: not urgency or endless extraction.
Our Guiding Principles
- Rest over urgency.
- Care over productivity.
- Presence over performance.
- Enoughness over excess.
- Cultural memory over disposability.
- Intention over endless output.
Our Commitment to Inclusion
Studio Kōlea is a space for returning to the body, to breath, to land, and to self.We do not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or exclusion in any form.
We welcome all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, or age. Safety, dignity, and equity are foundational to our collective rest.
The future we tend is shaped by what we choose to protect with our time, our hands, and our aloha & aşk. May we protect what matters, and return to it with care.
Our Roots & Commitments
Deeply inspired by the vibrant history and art of Hawaiʻi's local muʻumuʻu culture, Studio Kōlea and founder Ezgi Iraz operate on the traditional lands of Native Hawaiians. We offer our deepest respect to the poʻe kānaka maoli and honor the ongoing stewardship of Hawaiʻi's diverse communities.
Giving back is foundational to our studio. As we grow, we are committed to supporting local businesses and donating art, photography, and financial resources to community initiatives.
We are official sponsor of Survivors Collective Hawai'i.
Me ke aloha pumehana, Sevgilerimle
Studio Kōlea