Have you ever noticed the sign above Nikkei Traditions on Jackson Street? Do you know why the words “Shanghai” hang above the shop? For almost two years, Susan Hayase and Tom Izu have led a community of historians, artists, and technicians to create 19 augmented reality art pieces on the streets of Japantown. The Hidden Histories of San Jose Japantown exhibit, currently housed in the museum’s rotating exhibit area, introduces this project. Using augmented reality technology, the public can interact with art inspired by the experiences of the Chinese, Japanese and Filipino residents of the area. If you aren’t able to make it to the museum you can begin your exploration of the exhibit on the website.
Susan and Tom took a few minutes to share some more information about this amazing project.
AR art piece “Winds of Change” by Lucien Kubo
What was your inspiration for this project?
The stories told by local historians, Connie Young Yu and Robert Ragsac, about Heinlenville and Pinoytown, inspired us to explore this history further and encouraged us to find ways to move this important history to the center of the Japantown narrative. The augmented reality art by internationally known digital media artist Tamiko Thiel provided us with a way to make these hidden histories available to the community and beyond into the future. Bringing our place-based community history to the foreground is a way to unite our multi-generational and dispersed communities and creates a sense of the value of place that can potentially be a bulwark against gentrification and erasure.
You chose the 9 artists a day before lockdown started. How has the pandemic affected your plans?
We had originally envisioned a lot of in-person interaction between community members, the artists, and our advisors, with lots of activities at the museum and throughout various parts of Japantown. The idea was that we'd give a non-virtual, immersive experience of Japantown for our artists and a chance for the community to interact with the artists and our project team to share stories and get the community interested in what we were trying to do. We also assumed that the tech training and the artists' work on their art pieces would be in-person featuring lots of interaction, discussion, and feedback. We were looking forward to having Tamiko Thiel, Lead Artistic Advisor, and Peter Graf, Lead Technical Advisor come out for a visit from Germany where they live to give some hands-on demonstrations and talks.
The pandemic totally upended these plans and forced us to figure out how to do all of this virtually. Our wonderful team sprang into action and came up with alternatives: virtual training sessions covering AR technology and AR art. Tamiko Thiel and Corinne Okada Takara, our supervising community artist, created training aids, tutorials, and online practice activities. We had Zoom sessions featuring stories about Heinlenville Chinatown, Japantown, and Pinoytown shared by our advisors. Curt Fukuda, our documentarian/archivist, dug into his archive of oral histories and produced many videos covering the history of the three communities as well as making available other resources for the artists. We created virtual "tea and coffee" hang-out sessions for artists to ask questions as they began to work on their AR art pieces.
Hidden Stories Project Kick-Off Meeting. (From left to right: Curt Fukuda, Sue Kanagawa Yuen, Tom Izu, Susan Hayase, Corinne Okada Takara.)
You have worked with many different artists on this project. How were you inspired by the artists?
It was an experiment and something completely new for both of us. We didn't really know how the artists would handle this project or what they would come up with. We didn't have a set template that would somehow ensure we'd cover what we thought we needed to cover.
We had many worries: that artists not familiar with Japantown and Asian American history might not connect with the content and material we wished to explore, and that artists who had no experience with immersive technology might find it too difficult to take on this project.
However, our artists, dealing with all of these unknowns, with the stresses of the pandemic, and whatever else was going on in their busy lives produced art pieces that moved us and made us really proud to have worked with them!
Both of us were amazed by the range in a variety of styles and how each artist approached different stories that most inspired them, and how they took on some difficult technical issues. We really feel that they took to heart the community building lesson we felt was at the center of this project, and we are so grateful for their effort and what they produced.
AR art piece “Flags” by Takeshi Mori
Have there been any unexpected opportunities resulting from connections made during your work on the exhibit?
People from outside of our area have expressed interest in our project with an eye towards doing something similar for their particular communities, and we are strongly encouraging them to do so. We are hoping our project will inspire others to use immersive technology for grassroots, community-based projects and would love to see more happening!
Also, we ended up creating a significant library of resource materials in the form of video recordings. These are recordings of the eight virtual public programs we produced for the museum covering the history of the three communities. The content of the shows range from Halloween Ghost Stories to New Year's Traditions, to Gambling, and of course, Heinlenville and Pinoytown history lessons. Additionally, Curt created over 67 short videos on related topics and issues on Japantown. We didn’t originally plan to do any of these! All are available to the public on our project website and YouTube channel.
What are the next steps for this exhibit and future plans?
We received an Abierto grant from the City of San Jose that will help us run walking tours between now and the end of December. You can find more information about our walking tours here.
Coupled with our exhibit currently featured in JAMsj's rotating exhibit area, we are looking forward to generating additional interest and support for our work and for JAMsj in general.
We are also currently in discussions about what we'd like to see happen with our project in the New Year. We'd love to do more AR art pieces and cover some areas we feel we didn't get to cover this last time around. This would include more AR related support for the Pinoytown Walking tours that our advisor, Robert Ragsac, is working on with the Filipino American National Historical Society, Santa Clara Valley Chapter. We are also interested in continuing work with the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, including pieces that could be exhibited at both History San Jose and here in Japantown at the site of Heinlenville Chinatown. Another idea might be to help integrate AR into JAMsj’s main gallery exhibits which would allow the museum to add and change content without altering the permanent display.
Regarding bigger projects, the scope of our future work will depend on how much additional support and funding we can secure.