Artists' Books

“Chirashi: Stories from the Garden” by Baco Ohama. by Tajliya Jamal

“Chirashi: Stories from the Garden” by Baco Ohama (Call Number 0091)

Baco Ohama is a Japanese-Canadian artist who works primarily with text. She has various artist publications, some in tandem with exhibitions, and others as works on their own.

“CHIRASHI: stories from the garden” is an artist’s book interlaced with poetry, personal narratives, and documentation of family history in both text and photographs. Through poetic descriptions of gardens, recountings of familial relationships, and a transcription of a letter, Ohama builds a portrait of her grandmother, Asayo Murakami, with implications to the pains of loss, quiet joys, and excitement of discovery of cultural heritage.

The book begins with a poem depicting her grandmother in the garden, and through this fragmented depiction, Ohama indicates the struggle of language barrier and loss of fluid communication. She ends the poem introducing a letter written to her grandma, the writing of it being “a slow process” for her as she must check and double-check translations.

Ohama’s letter to her grandmother exists in this book fragmented, with each successive piece of it marking a different section of the book. The letter is written in Japanese hiragana, in Japanese romanized phonetics, and in English, highlighting the process of translation, Ohama’s efforts to communicate with her grandmother, and her efforts to connect with her history.

Much of the book’s content are fragmented memories and stories, often retold by different family members. Many pages are accompanied by family photographs, printed on translucent vellum sheets, making the text on either side partially visible through them. The visual effect is a delicate fogginess, emulating the feeling of recollecting memories.

As the reader pieces together the snippets of stories around Ohama’s grandmother, they are made increasingly aware of the transference of a culture from one geographical location to another, and its effects on the passing of culture through ongoing generations. Ohama’s process of cultural recovery through the making of this book underlies each page, revealing the pains and the joys of being a part of a diaspora and having to search for your histories. Ohama wisely states:

“The bridges are there between generations. Between sansei and yonsei and our issei and nissei parents and grandparents. There is much to be shared when we open ourselves to the lives and experiences, the stories and the love, the pain and the treasures of one another.

At times when we get so busy and caught up with the multitude of things we must do each day we may forget to walk over that bridge.

When we do it’s quite possible that we will discover … /

… a garden in full bloom”

The book is finished off with a glossary of Japanese words used in the text.

Linda Ohama, has filmed a documentary of their grandmother titled “Obachan’s Garden”, which will be showing next Monday at the Cinematheque, Vancouver.

Additional Resources:

http://japanesecanadianartists.com/artist/baco-ohama/

https://wsworkshop.org/collection/until-my-body-says-sleep-kokyo/