RedLine is a proud partner and administrator of the Arts in Society artist grant. This collaborative program provides grants to both individuals and organizations that use art as a vehicle to promote social justice and community welfare. 

We love highlighting our Art in Society (AIS) grant recipients and all the unique and impactful projects made possible by their grant. And we’re excited continue this series with the Japanese Art Network’s AIS project: “Stories of Solidarity.”

Learn more about this storytelling project that highlights the stories of Japanese Americans who resettled in Denver following WWII — and the solidarity that existed amongst the mixed cultural communities in Five Points.

Tell us a bit about the Japanese Arts Network and your work in Denver.

The Japanese Arts Network (JA-NE) amplifies the stories, creativity, contributions, and cultural intentions of Japanese artists in America and honors their multifaceted identities by providing opportunities to share their lived experiences through art, self-expression, and collaboration.

Founder Courtney Ozaki is a third and fourth generation Japanese American born and raised in Colorado with family roots in Denver’s Five Points, Curtis Park, and North Denver neighborhoods.

Japanese arts had been integral to her life from an early age. She started playing taiko (Japanese drums) at eight years old, and her professional arts trajectory helped her to recognize forming JA-NE as a way to deepen connections on an intrinsic level with Japanese heritage and culture.  

The voices of Japanese and Asian artists in America are marginalized and often categorized or placed into “cultural” stereotypes in order to check proverbial boxes instead of being recognized for the value and artistic merit of their work.

JA-NE works with artists to provide, and often create, meaningful opportunities for them to share their work and prioritizes valuing artist contributions and equitable compensation, while ensuring stakeholders and community supporters feel mutually invested and rewarded.

The organization also aims to lift up and support an ecosystem of mutual support connecting creatives, collaborators, stakeholders, communities and multi-generational audiences together through programs that center the arts for collective learning and growth.

JA-NE is grateful to programs like Arts in Society for allowing us to share how Japanese arts may help to universally connect people, cross boundaries, and create opportunities for intersectional collaboration between traditional and modern art forms and cultural communities of the global majority.  

Japanese Arts Network has partnered with the Mile High Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) for this program. 

The JACL is the largest civil rights organization in the country focused on Americans of Japanese ancestry whose mission is to uphold and secure the civil rights of Japanese Americans and all Americans, while preserving the cultural heritage of the people.

Tell us about your first project that will utilize your AIS grant — “Stories of Solidarity.”

In the wake of World War II during the 1940’s and 50’s, following the closing of America’s incarceration camps where, due to the signing of Executive Order 9066, 120,000 American citizens of Japanese descent were ordered into incarceration camps from the West Coast with no legal cause, the area surrounding and within the historic Five Points neighborhood in Denver saw a surge of Japanese-American (JA) culture and businesses in the “Larimer Street Corridor” and surrounding areas.  

Many people of Japanese descent saw Colorado as a place to land following WWII. Despite the placement of Amache incarceration site in Colorado, the state’s Governor Ralph Carr openly opposed interning Japanese American citizens, stating that it would deprive them of their basic rights as citizens based only on their racial background.

Japanese arrivals to Denver joined other communities of color who inhabited and owned businesses in the Five Points and Curtis Park neighborhoods as a consequence of oppressive redlining and deliberate, discriminatory actions and policies which didn’t allow them to live in or open businesses in other parts of the city. 

Our project is a transmedia storytelling project that will provide participants with the opportunity to access stories of this Japanese American community who resettled in Denver following WWII, and it also shares about the solidarity that existed amongst the mixed cultural communities in Five Points.

Oral histories have been and continue to be captured from community members with past to present connections to the neighborhood. These interviews in their entirety are being compiled into an online public archive that will be accessible and available to the public.

With the stories collected from these oral histories, we have built a “neighborhood mapping tour” that can be experienced in-person on foot or driving by following along via the phone app, and it may also be accessed via an online webpage.

Participants will be guided through the streets of Five Points and Curtis Park, hearing and learning about stories of Japanese American life through historic images, site specific public art, interview clips, original music, film and environmental sound design.

Some of my favorite stories shared include: the friendship between a Japanese and Mexican grandmother who chat over the fence to one another in each of their own native languages, an exciting Fats Domino sighting at The Rossonian Theater, and reflections on being a child of grocery store owners in the Five Points/Curtis Park neighborhood during post-war resettlement. 

In addition to the release of the neighborhood map and tour, we will open a short-term pop-up interactive exhibit at The Savoy for three weekends. 

Photos and physical artifacts will be featured to deepen engagement with the guided experience and the community stories shared.  This exhibit will also feature a virtual reality short film that gallery visitors may view on loan from the Japanese American National Museum entitled A Life in Pieces. 

This short film is based on the life and story of Stanley Hayami as documented in his journals telling of what life in incarceration at Heart Mountain concentration camp was like, providing viewers a more intimate understanding of what many Japanese Americans experienced prior to their arrival to Denver.  

What's next in the pipeline for your organization in 2022? What other projects are you dreaming up this year for your org or community, and how will your AIS grant help to support these projects?

The Japanese Arts Network will be focused on community-driven arts projects in alignment with  our upcoming experiential theater production, ZOTTO ぞっと - a Supernatural Folktale. 

Co-produced by Theatre Artibus, Luster Productions, American Lore Theater, and Control Group Productions, this production will be a continuance of the immersive theatrical driving experience, ZOTTO ぞっと- a Supernatural Journey, that was produced by JA-NE and Luster Productions in 2020 in recognition of the community’s need for connection with the arts, and the importance of artists and creatives to have support, during a time of deep isolation.

The new immersive production’s focus aligns with the original production which arose in response to heightened racial tensions and civic unrest, with the producers’ recognition of our own internal biases, and in recognition of the need for cross-cultural understanding.  

ZOTTO will unite episodic theatrical storytelling with Japanese aesthetics and an interactive environment. On this journey participants will encounter yokkai and obakke (Japanese spirits and demons) and other unexpected characters as they dig deeper into Denver’s sordid histories.

Through our Arts in Society project, we have cultivated relationships with community members whose stories will inform how we share these histories as they relate to Five Points.

Audiences will have the opportunity to discover hidden secrets and engage with interactive elements that ask them to consider the relationship between intention and impact.  

JA-NE will be holding a series of daruma (Japanese intention-setting talisman) making workshops in communities across Denver and the front range that encourage introspection and healing.

Community members will be given the opportunity for their darumas, and their collective intentions, to become part of the set-design of ZOTTO for the duration of its run. 

Workshops will be supported by Japanese philosophies such as ‘ichi-go ichi-e’, (considering each encounter a one-time opportunity/experience), ‘kintsugi’ (the art of repair), ‘wabi sabi’ (beauty in imperfection) and ‘mottainai’ (not to waste). 

Participants will be asked to consider what intentions they would like to manifest for themselves, society, and the world while considering the importance and value of each encounter and the lasting impact of the choices we make.  

We are looking forward to sharing this new experiential theatrical work with Coloradans in November of 2022!

What was your experience like when applying for an AIS? What tips would you share with artists looking to apply for an AIS grant?

The Arts in Society grant application was an opportunity for JA-NE to focus on the heart of what was important to us to be shared through a program like “Stories of Solidarity.” 

We were able to identify how we would best engage participants with these important stories in meaningful and impactful ways through artistic storytelling.  

We’re very fortunate to have both the support of the AIS community, as well as to have an outstanding partner in the Mile High Japanese American Citizens League. 

When applying for an AIS grant, it made a lot of sense to partner directly with the historically and generationally  impacted community to collaborate on this endeavor. 

I encourage others to consider the impact they’d like to make, and what partnerships might strengthen how their project connects through deep understanding and relationship with a target community to allow for authenticity and meaningful collaboration.

I also encourage applicants to allow themselves to be inspired and motivated by all of the incredible projects that have been recipients of this grant over time!  Thank you for the opportunity, Arts in Society!

Meet another 2022 AIS Grantee Project: “El Arte de Nuestros Abuelos.”

“El Arte de Nuestros Abuelos” translates to “the art of our grandparents.” The goal of this AIS project is to help establish a cultural wisdom-sharing network for elders in Huerfano County, La Veta, Huerfano County and more,

Learn more about this project and the impactful ways it’s connecting elders with creative outlets to enrich their emotional, cultural, and social well-being.

Learn about 2022 AIS Grantee project “El Arte de Nuestros Abuelos” >