OTTO=sound : Banashi=story

OTTO=sound : Banashi=story is a six-part tone poem and a 30-minute film about the complex character of a post-WWII Japanese American community in Pasadena, California. 

The project is an artist response to two years of immersion into the programming and operations of a cultural and religious institution, the Pasadena Buddhist Temple. It is a collective-voice, based on hours of oral history collection; candid interviews of over a dozen members whose families persevered through racism, exclusion, and imprisonment. With the support and participation of community members, Nakagawa has created a mood-driven response to stories, insights, and observations that reflect generational trauma and perseverance.

"Towards the start of my second year as the Temple's artist-in-resident, I wanted to create a work based on the oral histories I was gathering of elder members and juxtapose them to the many Temple artifacts l was shown. They are of the period when the original founding families were in charge (the 1950s-70s) and are stored under the Temple,” said Nakagawa. “I started working on a site-specific multi-media work that would utilize the architecture on the campus and then the COVID-19 pandemic started. What was a consistent 1-2 day a week visit with large groups of volunteers; the sewing club, grounds maintenance crew the Sons of Gardeners (SOGs), and other classes; became a socially distanced visit of only a handful of volunteers in a comparative ghost-town like atmosphere. I had to re-work the project into an online presentation. I started with the soundtrack.”

Inspired by Erik Satie’s Furniture Music and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “async” Nakagawa recorded six short compositions that captured the quiet environment of the pandemic-affected Temple grounds. Conversations with members at the Temple led Nakagawa to new information; facts about the old Japanese school they used to have there, the trees in the parking lot, the antique Japanese typesetting machines stored under the Temple, etc. It all pointed him to what the project wanted to become, tone poems. So he decided to place bits of oral histories over the music he created, like lines of poetry. 

The half-hour-long film six-part tone poem contains historic images, a re-creation of one of the Japanese school classrooms, a sound performance with the "orphan" Butusdan's, and more. Each part is a response to the multi-chronology, loss of language, and deep complexity of the Institution and its members.

For more information visit, Alan Nakagawa: The Invisible Tea House