LTSC +LAB Presents: Little Tokyo Summer Art Series

All events are free and open to the public!

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Cog•nate Collective (Misael Diaz and Amy Sanchez Arteaga)

Future Echoes

What: FUTURE ECHOES is a site-specific sound installation reflecting on the ways past, present and future inhabitants of the First Street North block in Little Tokyo have confronted displacement, and resisted erasure.

The project culls together sounds excavated through research, speculative fiction written by local authors and recordings produced by Cog•nate Collective in collaboration with traci kato kiriyama, LTSC’s Youth Group and other community partners throughout their time as +Lab Artists-in-Residence – with Visual Communications as host organization.

Beginning on Saturday August 17th, the public will be able tune in to experience this hyper-local audio installation on the First Street North block. Check the 341 1st St North storefront the week of Aug 11 for listening instructions.

Throughout the month, Cog•nate will also host Listening + Recording Sessions which will provide interactive opportunities for the public to engage with the audio and participate in the recording process.

Stay tuned for more details about upcoming programming!

Who: All ages welcome!

When: August 17th Noon to August 31st Noon

Where: First Street North Block, Little Tokyo

Future Echoes REC Session

What: Drop in to 341 FSN during the +Lab Open House and take part in a Recording Session that invites the public to reflect on historical resonances to foster acts of solidarity between communities today.

Visitors will have the opportunity to give voice to historical and contemporary accounts of displacement and detention by engaging with letters written by Japanese Americans detained in concentration camps during WWII, and letters written by migrant asylum seekers currently in detention centers at the US/Mexico border.

Cog•nate Collective and traci kato kiriyama (2019 +Lab Artists-in-Residence) will be on hand to facilitate conversation, produce audio recordings and host a station for visitors to write their own letters to migrants detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, CA, in partnership with the organization Detainee Allies.

Audio produced as part of this session will be broadcast as part of FUTURE ECHOES and integrated into a soundscape as part of traci kato kiriyama’s PAST PRESENT: CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FUTURE.

Who: All ages welcome!

When: August 10, 11:00 am — 3:00 pm

Where: 341 FSN

Future Echoes: Public Hearing

What: Join 2019 +Lab Artists-in-Residence Cog•nate Collective as they celebrate the launch of FUTURE ECHOES, a site-specific sound installation that invites you listen to the local air: to stories suspended in waves over First Street North, speaking tales of displacement, resistance, shared struggle and acts of radical hope.

Gather, listen and reflect on how we might (re)chart paths towards more equitable, just and inclusive futures. Today we hold the airwaves, tomorrow we’ll hold the land.

Who: All ages welcome!

When: August 17, 12:00 pm — 6:00 pm

Where: 341 FSN

Sound Capsule REC Session

What: What does Little Tokyo sound like to you? Is there an aspect of this sound that you would want to preserve for posterity? Please contribute it to the FUTURE ECHOES sound-capsule!

Bring a song (in any format), a sound-producing-object or simply a story that conveys your feelings about First Street North/Little Tokyo to our launch event.

We will be conducting recordings to produce a mixtape that will air as part of FUTURE ECHOES broadcasts.

Who: All ages welcome!

When: August 17, 12:00 pm — 6:00 pm

Where: 341 FSN

Future Echoes: Listening Station

What: In collaboration with traci kato kiriyama’s PAST PRESENT: CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FUTURE Cog•nate Collective will be hosting an interactive Listening Station sharing stories of speculative fiction produced by local Angelino writers, imagining what a “historically-informed” future in Little Tokyo looks like, what it sounds like, and how it feels.

Who: All ages welcome!

When: August 28, 29, 30 7:30 pm — 10:00 pm

Where: Japanese American National Museum Plaza

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Isak Immanuel and Marina Fukushima

Water Maps / Between Place: Somatic Movement Workshop Series

What: A series of somatic based, experimental movement workshops. Cultivate listening to body and senses to explore the dynamics of presence and a sensitive relationship to place. Influenced by Noguchi Taisou methods of the “body as a water bag” and a hybrid dance process, exercises are developed for moving with release, relaxation, restriction, fluidity, and image.

As the physical and conceptual process of the workshops stem from the residency theme, “ending cycles of displacement”, they delve into the ways in which displacement is often intimately interwoven with disembodiment. They serve as an open local process to explore the shifting layers of body, ground, and an internal landscape.

These are accessible, low-impact movement workshops. Wear comfortable clothing for movement.

Water Maps

Who: Focus on Seniors but is open to all ages. This event is presented in both English and Japanese.

When: July 24, 31, and August 7 (Wednesdays), 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

Where: Aratani Theater on July 17, 24, 31 / JACCC Cultural Room on August 7.

Between Place

Who: All ages event presented in both English and Japanese. Live interpretations provided for Spanish speakers.

When: July 20, 27 and August 3 (Saturdays), 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Where: Aratani Theater

Shadow in the Water: A Traveler

What: A traveling performance series set to take place inside and along the edges of Little Tokyo including the First Street North block. As a form of discursive mapping, the work is composed as walking processions with intermittent points of stillness and fleeting site-specific dances in varied locations. Portable carts serve as a sense of framing “transplanting” and “unstable places”, carrying various objects, small trees, dirt, water, and people.

When: Beginning August 6 (Tuesday), 7-9pm. Additional dates and times TBA online.

Where: Inside and along the edges of Little Tokyo including the First Street North block. Details TBA online.

Festival of Shadows: Mapping Invisible Dances

What: Culminating intergenerational performance from the residency process meeting people, place, and shadow. It is composed from a series of movement scores, video, and installation developed from local workshops and an experiential inquiry to mapping present and absent bodies. Reflecting on “invisible dances”, extracts of Junichiro Tanizaki’s essay “In Praise of Shadows”, and the precarious borders of Little Tokyo within downtown Los Angeles, a layered landscape unfolds. The collaborative work takes place in the Aratani Theater and encircling Isamu Noguchi’s center sculptural work in the Noguchi Plaza.

Who: All ages welcome!

When: August 24, 25 (Saturday, Sunday), 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Where: Aratani Theater / Noguchi Plaza

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traci kato-kiriyama

Summer Respite: Tea & Letter Writing at JANM Plaza

What: Do you miss the art of letter-writing? Want to write a letter to the future of Little Tokyo, a long lost friend, or maybe someone in need of support? What are your hopes and dreams for Little Tokyo? How do you define “home” and “community,” and what does it means to be a “good friend” or “good neighbor?”

Gather, relax, share tea and conversation while writing letters—guided by traci kato-kiriyama, one of Little Tokyo Service Center’s 2019 +LAB Artists-in-Residence, and Linda Wei, artist and tea enthusiast. Sound-based ethnographer, Umi Hsu, will also be present to record anyone who wants to read their letter aloud.

Who: All ages welcome! Tea and paper/cards/stamps will be provided, free of charge. Feel free to bring a small snack to share.

When: August 1, 8, 15, 22 (Thursdays), 5:00 pm — 8:00 pm

Where: Japanese American National Museum Plaza/Central Hall

Past Present: Conversations with the Future

What: Pulling together the moving parts of her +LAB residency experience, traci kato-kiriyama —with home base JANM— presents a performance-installation utilizing large-scale projections and sound scapes of letters of the past in conversation with the present. From sunset to 10pm each night, the public can enjoy a loop of the projections and sound scape recorded from letters found in JANM’s Collections department as well as tkk’s Tea & Letter Writing series & community engagements in collaboration with Cognate Collective. The letters are thread together by issues of family separation that surpass time and connect communities then, now and into the future as we contemplate, discuss and plot how we’ll elevate our active definitions of Solidarity, Community, and Home, in Little Tokyo and beyond.

Each night will host areas for tea drinking, letter writing, an interactive listening station produced by Cognate Collective, and live performance featuring traci with Residency collaborators, including Umi Hsu, Rino Kodama, Ally Vega, Linda Wei, Mya Worrell, Kuniharu Yoshida.

Please note that live performances will vary each night. For details closer to each date, follow @traciakemi1 on Instagram.

Who: All are welcome! Free to public

Where: event happening outside on Japanese American National Museum Plaza

When: Wednesday-Friday, August 28-30, 7:30-10:00pm

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LTSC’s +LAB Artist Residency Program is in collaboration with the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Visual Communications, Japanese American National Museum, and Sustainable Little Tokyo.