Agoura Hills Library Share Creative Strategist Artist-In-Residence

Press release from the Agoura Hills Library:

February 18, 2021

In 2018, LA County Library partnered with the LA County Department of Arts and Culture as a part of the Creative Strategist-Artist in Residence (Creative Strategist) program. The Creative Strategist program embeds artists in County departments to work alongside staff, project partners, and community stakeholders in a collaborative process to develop, strategize, promote, and implement artist-driven solutions to complex civic issues.

Artist Alan Nakagawa was selected from several applicants to be the Creative Strategist for the Library and conduct Kamishibai community workshops as well as training for Library staff in community-based engagement workshops. In 2020, Alan and LA-based poet Rocio Carlos developed training materials to provide Library staff with the information and training necessary to host and conduct their own Kamishibai workshops in the future, virtually or in libraries.

Learn more about the Creative Strategist program and all of the resulting projects at LACountyArts.org/CreativeStrategist.

What is Kamishibai?

Kamishibai is a vintage Japanese form of street theater and storytelling. Popular during the 1930s, Kamishibai storytellers would use illustrated boards placed inside a Kamishibai theater to tell a story. They would travel, sometimes on bikes, from place to place bringing their stories to people who would gather around to listen.

Kamishibai Library Stories

In 2018 and 2019, Alan worked with LA County Library to engage the community through the arts in five library locations. Using the vintage Japanese art of Kamishibai, Alan and LA-based poet Rocio Carlos led workshops with members of the community to develop collaborative original stories and illustrations. Alan designed and fabricated a Kamishibai theater for each workshop, which remain on display in each coinciding library, as well as a traveling Kamishibai theater bike for the Library. All of the original stories were duplicated and a copy of the entire collection was delivered to each of the five participating libraries.

Watch performances of the final stories created by Library community members:

Created by participants from the Friends of the Claremont Library, volunteers from the Sam and Alfreda Maloof foundation, and art students from Claremont High School. This Kamishibai theater was specially created by artist Lauren Verdugo at the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation.

Quartz Hill Library

Princess Knight, Wolf, and the Alien

Created by students from the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

Topanga LibraryTheir Way Home

Created by students at Topanga Elementary Charter School.

Willowbrook LibraryWillow Loves Willowbrook

Created by staff and community members at Willowbrook Library.

Mothra the Monarch

Sample story created by artists Alan Nakagawa, Rocio Carlos, and Ana Chaidez.

Additional Information

Books

Kamishibai Man by Allen Say

After many years of retirement, an old Kamishibai man–a Japanese street performer who tells stories and sells candies–decides to make his rounds once more even though such entertainment declined after the advent of television.

Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater by Eric Peter Nash

Before giant robots, space ships, and masked super heroes filled the pages of Japanese comic books–known as manga–such characters were regularly seen on the streets of Japan in kamishibai stories. Explore the history of this fascinating and nearly vanished Japanese art form that paved the way for modern-day comic books, and is the missing link in the development of modern manga.

This press release was product by the Agoura Hills Library. The views expressed are the author's own.